riggerpaul

While I 'accept' that this is de rigueur when finger-trapping the excess line, I do not find it mentioned in any of the ram-air reserve manuals that I have on my shelf. I looked at: Smart - no mention Amigo - no mention Techno - no mention Swift - no mention PD - no mention Raven - no mention I am curious what other riggers have to say on this. JerryBaumchen PS) de rigueur => noun - strictly required, as by etiquette, usage, or fashion I was taught that the end of the finger-trapped line must be soft. I was taught that if you hot knife a line that will later be finger trapped, you must cut the hard end off with a razor of some sort, so that you have only un-melted line that is soft. I was also taught that the end should be cut at a sharp angle so you don't create a shoulder where the end is inside the outer line. There should be a smooth transition from the fatter area to the thinner area. No, I don't see this mentioned in canopy manuals, but it is part of what I was taught to properly finger-trap a line. I looked in my PD Reserve manual, and it did recommend finger-trapping the excess line. I don't need them to spell out what is the proper way to finger-trap a line. That's something I should already know from my training.

If the USPA rules provide for travel expenses, then LB, or anybody else who is covered by the rule for that matter, is supposed to get his travel paid for. Frequent Flyer miles, or even free flights based on his wife's employment, have nothing to do with it. If USPA has rules that say they pay for the travel, you should not be expected to foot the bill, no matter what form your payment might have taken. On the other hand, if this is about rules being broken, then have at it. If he got USPA to pay for a First Class seat when the rules allow for Coach, go after him for sure. The re-hiring matter seems to be one of rules being broken, and if that is true, then we have a legitimate beef. But if there are no rules being broken on the matter of having USPA paying for the travel in question, then don't make it out to be some sort of crime. If USPA would pay someone else for the same travel, then don't fault LB for getting equal treatment.

Jerry Springer would be more fun. Not to leave out the touch-feely types, let's plan at least one guest appearance from Dr. Phil.

That's good news! Any word on how this new attitude might be reflected in the 2 page proficiency cards?

I wish that I could still delete or at least edit the post where I told BillyVance that the manuals did not cover where you must turn on the AAD. I was so intent on looking up the instructions regarding altitude offsets that I entirely missed the sections of the manuals that BrianM has quoted. THANK YOU BRIAN, VERY GOOD CATCH!!

That's a great question, and I am sure I don't know the answer. I have looked at both the Airtec manuals and the Argus manual too and neither seems to address your particular situation. I have sent an email to Airtec and to the Argus people asking them. I will post when I get a reply. The manuals clearly address the situation where you turn on the AAD at the airport, and must adjust it to a different landing area altitude. And they all say that any altitude adjustment must be done at the takeoff location. But none of the manuals seem to say anything about turning the AAD on at the dz, and going to an airport that is at a different altitude. As I said, I have sent emails, and I hope we'll get answers soon. -paul

USPA has made it quite clear, and published such in the USPA Professional newsletter, that the only things that can have a Coach sign are the items on the 4 page proficiency card that carry the notation "C/I" next to the line. The "C/I" means that the item can be signed by either a Coach or an Instructor. None of the lines on the 2 page proficiency card have the "C/I" notation, so it is not allowable for a Coach to sign anything on that card. USPA can choose to reject the license application if they find that the signatures do not meet their requirements. It used to be informally the way you said, but more recently, USPA has made statements saying this sort of thing might result in rejection of the license application.

Do you ride to the airport and put your gear on there? Are AADs turned on and altitude adjustments made while you are hurrying to board the plane? Or do you arrange it so you are all ready and waiting when the aircraft arrives? Do you turn hot loads? I'm just wondering how it works out for you. Any details you'd like to share are greatly appreciated. Thanks!

I don't think we have established that this is a situation of two dancing a tango. With it, you imply that both have some culpability in the matter. That has not been established at all. For all we know, the customer was demanding wholly unreasonable things, and Karnage's only possible response was to say no. That's not a tango at all. If the customer has been damaged, let him say so. His unwillingness to do so suggests to me that he has less than firm ground upon which to stand.

You do not set you AAD higher or lower. You just change the activation altitude. A good example when you have to change the activation altitude of your AAD: Skydive Spa in Belgium. The airport, DZ, clubhouse ... are at the same place. Sometimes jumprun takes you above a hill (+100 m, 330 ft). If you do not change the activation altitude of your AAD when this is the case, ... And please stop comparing the AAD with an altimeter. Jurgen First off, not that it is a really big thing, but the first segment of post you quoted was not mine. It was already a quote in my post. It originally came from someone else. Anyway, I cannot agree that you are changing the activation altitude. You are changing the landing area altitude, and the activation altitude follows from that. If you were just changing the activation altitude, the AAD would not be able to shut off properly when you land. Shutting off when you have landed is an important function of the AAD in order to prevent inadvertent activations. At least one of the manuals cautions that you should check that the AAD has turned off when you land because a slight error in your offset setting might prevent that function. If you were to say, set an EXPERT CYPRES to 3000 feet higher in order to use it on a tandem rig, you would not be getting a TANDEM CYPRES. If you just set an EXPERT CYPRES that way, it will shut off when you pass the new landing elevation you have set. If you were just changing the activation altitude, I don't think that would happen. So it seems to me that you are, in fact, changing the AADs notion of the ground altitude at the landing area, and the activation altitude is the same as always for the mode or model of the AAD, and it is based on the altitude of the landing area. As I said to BrianM, you can certainly think of it as changing the activation altitude if it helps you to remember how to set the AAD properly. But all the manuals speak of adjusting for an offset to the landing area from the takeoff area, and I think you can take that literally. Finally, I am not comparing an AAD and an altimeter. I am saying that since we had a precedent for an altitude adjustment, we should have stuck with it. Then there would be no need to remember which one you set which way.

Some of the our different experiences and perceptions are no doubt rooted in the fact that I was jumping long before there were practical AADs for experienced jumpers. When I learned about how to correct an altimeter for an offset to the landing area, there was no other way to think about it but to set the altimeter with the landing area being zero. The altitude correction on an altimeter is completely intuitive for me. You tell the altimeter where you are now relative to where you will be when you land. If I am below the landing area now, the altimeter displays a negative altitude when set correctly. If I am above the landing area now, the altimeter displays a positive altitude when set correctly. So, when AADs came around, they were the one's whose correction method was not so intuitive. We've never had an altimeter where you set it the way that you say seems intuitive for an AAD. While some people choose not to use an AAD, virtually nobody does not own an altimeter. So, even today, pretty much everybody needs to know how to properly set an altimeter. Is the way the AAD works now more more intuitive overall. Maybe yes, maybe no. That's a different question we can discuss separately. When you consider that pretty much everybody needs to be able to set an altimeter, why shouldn't we have wanted the AAD to be set the same way? Had it been done that way, nobody would ever be confused as to which one was set which way. By the way, I also had a long career writing firmware in a variety of computer environments. I, too, can readily imagine what the firmware in an AAD looks like.

The two are the same, of course. It is only a matter of point of view. My point is that we already had the notion that you want your altimeter to read zero when you land. You know how to set your altimeter to achieve that result. The AAD setting could be done exactly the same way, and then you would not think about anything different at all. If you had set your altimeter to -400 at the airport because the landing area is 400 feet above you, you'd set your AAD to the same value. The fact that the manuals all talk about the landing area altitude, and not the activation altitude, suggests to me that they were at least trying to have us thinking about the same thing, which is the elevation of the landing area. That particular twist, thinking about the activation altitude instead of the landing area altitude, is something you did for yourself to take the confusion out of the process. I am not saying that is a bad thing. But it is what you taught yourself to deal with the confusion. I am not saying that the whole issue is particularly difficult. It is not. But, even though you never had a problem with it, some people have found it confusing. And that is not optimal. If the AAD had been made to be set the same way as the altimeter, it would have been obvious to all, and nobody would ever be confused. I think that would have been superior to the what we have now. Maybe not a whole lot superior, but superior nonetheless. And just to be extra clear, I like the way you think about it, and I will remember that for use myself. But I still think it would have been better if I could have thought of the two, altimeter and AAD, in exactly the same way in the first place.

It is disappointing that the AAD designers did not recognize the precedent that had been established with the way we set our altimeters. In the best world, altimeters and AADs would be set the same way when adjusting for landing zone altitude offsets. Someone already mentioned that early AAD did it "backwards" long before the first CYPRES came onto the scene, so it isn't like I want to blame Airtec. Once we had AADs that did it opposite the way our altimeters do, it was probably wise to continue doing it that way to avoid the additional confusion that some AADs are one way, while other AADs are the other. Imagine the confusion if some AADs did it differently from other AADs. That would be a real mess!! Here's a question I have wondered about. Are there any dropzones where you don your gear beside the landing area and hop on a van that takes you to the airport that is at a different altitude? I think we are all familiar with the situation where the "club house" is at the airport, and the landing area is somewhere else. But what if the "club house" was at the landing area, and the airport was somewhere else? Are there any dropzones like that? All the AADs now expect to be turned on at the airport, and you ride back from the lz.

Sorry, but you haven't read carefully. I specifically said that this was not a proposal to limit total numbers of posts by a person in a thread, only consecutive ones. I'd have no complaints at all about, for example, the total number of posts you made in that thread you mention. Rather, I'm referring to certain people who make it a semi-constant habit of laying down 5, 6, 7 consecutive posts in a thread, one after another after another, after.. well, you know. To me, it's like weeds choking off everything else around it. I'm not the only one to openly complain about it; but since it's still happening, I thought I'd notch-up the issue. Thinking about any number x that could be chosen as the consecutive post limit, what happens if there is an inactive thread where the last x posts were all from the same person, but posted over a relatively long period of time? Should the count of consecutive posts be reset periodically? Once a day? Once an hour? I understand, in principle, the problem you describe, but I don't want to inhibit legitimate use. Doing this right might be more difficult than we initially imagine.

I am not quite sure what you are asking, but here's what I think you might be talking about. In the USA, there is no certification of sport main parachutes. There are just a few regulations that address the main parachute at all, such as what sort of rigging certifications are required to do the different sorts of maintenance and repair work on them. But, as far as the manufacture and distribution of sport main parachutes, there are not required to be certified in any way. Pilot emergency parachutes and sport reserve parachutes are one and the same in the eyes of the FAA. Each is intended for emergency or non-intentional use. Each must meet the certification requirements that were in effect at the time of their certification. The question of what is meant by "intentional use" is not really clearly defined. Clearly, a sport parachutist intends to use his reserve parachute in the event that he cannot use his main parachute. But, in the eyes of the FAA, it was not the intention of the sport parachutist to use the reserve when he was, for instance, leaving the aircraft, any more than it was the intention of the pilot to use the emergency parachute at the time he boarded the aircraft. Simply, the FAA does not consider that a sport reserve is for intentional use. In the eyes of the FAA, you intend to use your main parachute, if you have one, and you do not intend to use your emergency or reserve parachute. If you leave the aircraft in flight voluntarily, then you must have at least two parachutes, at least one of which is certified for emergency or non-intentional use. Does that answer your question?

Hi Rob, I answered 5, but that is not a sure thing. I know that there were at least a few samples for identification. I recall having to be able to quote some of the mil spec numbers. But it wasn't like there were a whole lot. It maybe could have been 10, but certainly not more. So, more than 0 and less than 10 left me with 5 as the poll item to check. -paul

Interestingly, according to the manual I have, only the 3 largest sizes specifically mention FAA approval. Or am I reading that chart incorrectly? Techno manual, 5th edition, dated November 2000, page 7

as written by Jurgen, this is VERY wrong. I have always found the manual a bit confusing on some of these issues. I have written an email to Airtec to see if they can clarify things. I will post their answers when/if I get a response. -paul

+1

And how you came to this decision without already consulting your rigger.

Actually, gotta go with billvon on this one. Down isn't really down when you have massive mountains nearby. I recall a Discovery Channel (or maybe it was a PBS) program about determining the height of Mount Everest. It mentioned that early surveys had inaccuracies that were not understood at the time. Basically, surveyors use triangles and trig to determine distances and elevations. They need a vertical reference for all the angles used to determine elevation. Mostly they use plumb bobs for that reference. But plumb bobs don't point exactly down when there are mountains nearby. They will be drawn ever so slightly off the vertical due to the gravity associated with the mass that is off to the side. So, good call bill.

Here's something I said before So, how high? As high as you can. As soon as you know you might need it. If it bothers a jumper to not have the RSL hooked up, then that jumper should be extra cautious to not do anything that might require a cut away after the RSL has been disconnected.

Let's look at this from a different point of view, shall we? The whole question of if this is intended to be a rule or not is moot. We cannot really meaningfully discuss it because you, in fact, agree with the idea that a climbing exit is inherently bad. You see nothing onerous about what is being said because you agree with it. I don't mean that as any sort of accusation. It is just a statement of the fact that we have to work with. I will never be able to make you think it is onerous, and you will never be able to make me think it is not. Again, I don't mean to say anything about who is right or who is wrong. That doesn't matter at all. So, I'll stop trying to convince you that a climbing exit is a good thing, and you stop trying to convince me that it is bad, okay? What we are left with is the question of whether or not this should be a rule. As I see it, if it is as important as you say, it should be a rule. If this is the way to prevent the injuries and fatalities that resulted from tail strikes, IT SHOULD BE A RULE. Making it a BSR would make it crystal clear what the weight of the statements would be. Do you agree? So, why not just do that? Would you object to having a BSR that says that all jumpruns should be the same as the ones we use at the full altitude? Please feel free to further qualify this to your own satisfaction. Exclude tailgate and high tail aircraft if you like. Say whatever you like so that you are satisfied that the result is what should be a rule. I don't want to mince words with you about flaps or airspeeds or anything like that. You are absolutely correct that doing that would be a waste of time and effort. Do you have any problem with making whatever we get from this exercise a rule? I don't. But, if you do have a problem with it, please tell us what that reservation is.

Here is a quote from an email I have from HQ That is a rule - it establishes what will or will not be considered acceptable aircraft operation. A "level jump run the same as they do for the full altitude exits" is not a climbing aircraft. So, even if it is possible, as you say, to climb in a Caravan in a level attitude, it is not acceptable to USPA, because it is not "the same as they do for the full altitude exits". I asked USPA to consider language that made it clear that their statements were not a rule, but a strong recommendation. They flatly refused. So, what we have is USPA trying to make an end run around the established rulemaking process, with the clear intent that what they say should be interpreted with the weight of a rule. You may not agree with my analysis. That is your right. But it is also clear that there are members who see it the same way I do, and disagree with what the USPA is doing here. No matter if it is a rule or not, if we, the members, do not like what the USPA is doing and saying, we have a right and an obligation to make our objections known. That is why I have spent so much time and energy. Because we have a right and an obligation to let USPA know what we feel either way.

If what I said is wrong, please tell us what constitutes a properly configured aircraft? If you could climb this aircraft with the tail higher, there would be no Safety Day Ad about it in the first place. You yourself have said that the tail is too low for a safe exit. If my statement is an unsubstantiated assumption, please correct me. Don't just say I made an error. USPA never said it was wrong to jump a Nova. They recommended against it. In the USPA Safety Day ad, they said the pilot was wrong to allow this exit. They said the tail was "much lower than it should have been". That language says the pilot made an error. That language says he was wrong to fly an exit that way. That is not a recommendation. It is an accusation. Bill, your reply was beneath you. Your silly little word games add nothing to the discussion, and they sully your fine reputation. Is this really the way you want to refute my point of view?