riggerpaul

I disagree. Were what you say so clearly true, no company would stop drug testing. But we have been told that some have, as it is too expensive and created little or no benefit. Clearly some businesses have decided that the liability exposure is not great enough to warrant drug testing. I must agree with Robin that most drug testing has more to do with subjugation of the employee and not public safety or liabilities associated with negligence. There are well documented cases where "the company physical" was used for purposes far from the purposes revealed to the employees. Andy9o8 mentioned the privacy issues associated with the specimens used for drug testing and what those tests might reveal. The notion that the employer reigns supreme in these matters easily leads to these sorts of abuses.

My apologies. Are you indicating you can't think of a single horrendous criminal activity that doesn't have a 'bearing on job performance' that would make you want to at least put that employee on unpaid administrative leave? I must have an overactive imagination because I can think of thousands. There you go again, trying to say I said (or will say) things I didn't (or won't). As has been said, we have agencies whose purposes are to handle law enforcement and criminal prosecution. If an employer has suspicions, the first thing to do is to involve the appropriate authorities. If and when the matter affects the job performance of the employee, that is when the employer should take steps related to the employee's employment status. Others have used the argument "that's the way things are" to say that employers have extensive rights. That concept works many ways. Our society says that the rights of the accused are not to be denied. That's the way things are.

I think if you make it that simple, then everyone will agree that employers should be able to discriminate. A pedophile who kills puppies in his free time has no bearing on his job performance, but I feel I should be able to terminate his employment because he is engaged in criminal activity. "Everyone will agree?" Nonsense! Speak for yourself. Don't speak for me.

I have a PdF Merit which has a logo screen printed on the bottom skin Any idea what sort of ink it was? Or was it a dye? As I said, I'm only familiar with the common heat cured stuff you see from t-shirt shops and such. That doesn't mean there aren't other methods. Somebody else said stick with the manufacturers. That seems like sound advice.

Thinking about the screen printing I have done, it wouldn't be at all compatible with canopies. All the inks I've used were heat cured, and the heat was pretty high at that.

There's a fellow at my home dz that just bought a Stiletto with a Union Jack on the bottom skin. It wasn't printing at all. It is a surprising number of colored fabric pieces stitched to the pieces that make up the bottom skin. They were stitched on BEFORE the canopy was assembled, so that when the canopy was assembled, voila, the Union Jack appeared. His bottom skin is white, so only the red and blue parts of the flag had to be added. He told me that the flag on the bottom cost more than the canopy. But he said he got a very good deal on the canopy. I've no idea what his out-the-door price was.

Eyes that beep? No, but your eyes send a signal to your voice systems, and you hear yourself scream "OH SHIT". In addition, it is sometime loud enough for the folks on the ground to hear.

+1 Matt +2 Honesty and integrity count for everything to me. The real question at hand is how much control over your non-work time to which your employer is entitled. (Admittedly US-centric stuff follows.) Our Constitution tells us we have the unalienable right to the pursuit of happiness. If skydiving makes you happy, our Constitution guarantees you the right to pursue it. (Don't pick nits about the right to be a criminal. Skydiving isn't illegal.) We are not supposed to be slaves or serfs. The more control is given to our employers, the less we look like free men. If you break the rules that were known at the time you were hired, you risk getting fired. I've no problem with that. But we have a right, and indeed an obligation, to be sure that the rules are the right rules. There have been far too many cases where the rules were not, in fact, in keeping with the laws of our land. Shame on us if/when we allow that.

Okay, in that case, I believe we have established that within our current system, the employer can mandate drug testing. That's what the lawyers who post here have said. But, your original post was this - So, I'm just wondering - do you still think it is a great thing for the DZ to use in its marketing campaign?

So, teach them to flat pack. It is easy. Canopy size hardly matters. If they want to learn other methods, they can do so at their leisure. You don't teach them to swoop during AFF, do you? So why teach a packing method that is apparently more advanced than they can handle? Nobody ever said they had to learn to pro pack for their license - they just need to learn to pack. In fact, just last week, I came across a flat packed reserve in a vector II. Flat packing works just fine, and it is lots easier than other packing methods.

Actually, you have. In fact, you have heard several. You just don't recognize them as such. In much the same way, I will say that I have not heard a good argument why an employer should. I don't expect you to change your mind. That's okay. Since you seem to feel that you have a significant drug problem in your business with which you must deal, you go right ahead. If you don't feel you have a drug problem in your business, why do you want to do this in the first place? If you just want to be sure that nobody smoked pot yesterday, even though his performance is unaffected, then please call it what it really is. You want the people who work for you to live up to your personal ideas of how they should act when they are not working. If you have a performance problem with a staff member, you already have a perfect right to fire him. So, really, what is your objective?

And now, finally, do you think this is as it should be? Don't tell me about law - tell my your opinion regarding your employer's right to control what you do in your non-work time.

So basically what most people are saying here is a TSOd reserve won't take more than 300ft or 3secs to open. An Optimum may be opening smoothly over that 300ft or 3secs to give a soft opening. Not "won't", "shouldn't" is more accurate. USPA and PIA have told us that there are a number of poorly explained cases of reserves that seemed to have the time and altitude to open, but didn't. The possible explanation at this point is that some rigs are so tight that the deployment was not able to meet the TSO'd specs. On another thread I reiterated some other advice that we should be choosing the canopies, and then the rigs, not the other way around. No matter what you do, there is a point where it is just too late. Call them arbitrary if you like. Faster openings might be able to make it even lower than it is now, but, as you say, the gear will need to be that much stronger to remain viable. Bottom line? I would not worry that the Optimum family of reserve increases the time or altitude required to open, compared to other reserves.

following the same logic, absolutely! Agreed. Are you two just trying to be a pita? That's really helping the discussion. Thanks a bunch. Agreed that the employer actually has the right? Or agreed that following the logic, the employer has the right? Too confusing for you? How about this - Does an employer have the right to tell you to stop skydiving or you lose your job?

Nothing on the USPA accident form requires any information about what sort of treatment was required.

Rights? As applicable to the topic? All you guys saying At work = No Own time = Yes. Hmmmm....my work day starts at 8:00 am. I can drink/smoke gallons or pounds up to 7:59 and be good to go because I didn't do it on company time. Got it now, thanks. Nobody ever said anything like that. Nobody ever said that you could be impaired at your job. All that was said was that no matter what you do on your own time, as long as you are back to required performance when you check in at work, you should not be hassled for what you did on your own time. Anyway, here's a related issue. Somebody mentioned the investment an employer has in his employees, and that the employer should have the right to protect his investment. Does that give the employer the right to tell you not to skydive?

You are ignoring the fact that the TSO testing still has the same limits for time to open and distance traveled. Making the opening smoother over more of the available time results in lower overall forces, not a longer time for opening. No matter how you consider it, meeting the TSO specifications still called for an opening that took no more than a certain amount of time and no more than a certain number of feet. Once those limits are met, wouldn't you prefer a canopy that did not brutalize your body to one that did?

PD says the Pulse is "lightly elliptical", so not perfectly rectangular. That said, the Saphire and the Pulse don't aim at exactly the same market, and we should not expect that either would meet the needs/wants of all customers. "One size smaller" is a sort of a catch phrase. It is not a scientific statement. Canopy selection is VERY subjective. Demo the ones you are considering. Buy what you like. YMMV. I like my Spectre, but a Pulse would be very nice for many things. You might find either too docile. It all depends on what you are looking for. I know that it is tough to consider, but several respected contributors here have mentioned that there seems to be a lot of backwards thinking when it comes to gear - that people choose the rig and then try to find canopies that will fit it. Find the canopies you want. If they don't fit your rig, sell the rig and get one that is right for the canopies you've selected. Too much depends on the whole system working correctly together. Just because it can be closed does not necessarily mean everything is as compatible as it really should/must be.

Slower? Not necessarily. The adage in skydiving is "Slow is smooth - smooth is fast". TSO is TSO. Off the top of my head, the limits are something like 300' and 3 seconds. (Please verify. There is some Svedka effect here. But, I mentioned it, so I am probably not really dramatically impaired.) Openings can be brutal if they open all at once in the last half second. A smoother opening that starts at time 0 can be as quick as any opening in the past, and yet less brutal on your body. The Optimum had to meet TSO requirements. (We are told that this is the reason that the bigger Optimum reserves took longer to come to market.) (Now, to be clear and honest, some of this will depend on your rig. USPA tells us that there have been cases where the suspicion is that rigs were too tight, and reserves did not open in time. That's not the fault of the reserve, is it? We have a SYSTEM that must work properly for the limits to be met.) But the PD Optimum still had to meet the TSO limits.

And if nobody is talking about it, we can expect it to stay that way. After all, ETOH was 100% criminalized there for a while too. By the way, your "except in CA" is not quite correct. Wikipedia list 12 states where, as least as far as the state is concerned, marijuana has been decriminalized to one extent or another.

The explanations I have heard is that the top skin and the end ribs are the most important parts with respect to the zp fabric. Both the Silhouette and the Pulse use ZP for these areas. Only the bottom skin and the internal ribs are the non-zp fabric. Certainly the permeability of the internal ribs will not be a big factor. After all, they have big crossports cut in them in the first place. I guess we'll just have to trust PD when they say that the bottom skin is significantly less critical than the top.

Bingo! Don't be assuming laziness where ignorance is sufficient. That just makes you bitter and/or angry. The world they are in doesn't include that stepping on a piece of string on the ground is a bad thing. Where do they see string on the ground? Gardening, camping, stuff like that. String is neither expensive nor critical. Be nice - ASK them not to step on things. It'll work wonders.

That outfit certainly makes you look hot. I'll bet you are sweating pretty good in there.

Smart manual says the canopy needs "porosity" testing after 20 repacks. Their wording is a bit confusing 1) it is permeability testing - nylon is not porous, that is, it does not absorb water. 2) After immersion? How much immersion? 3) After 20 repacks (based on a 6 month repack cycle) - does that mean 12 years, or 20 repacks, or either or what? 4) No definition of "abnormal condition". I tried in October of 2009 to get clearer information from them, and to have them clarify the manual, to no avail. Whatever the tests, it doesn't say this is a life limit. If it passes the test, you should be able to keep using it.

Judging by the experience of a friend who has owned a Silhouette for many years, no, the non-zp bottom skin (ribs too) will not decrease the lifetime of the canopy.