councilman24

Inks can weaken fabric and run. I made several customers replace freebags after they had written their name and address in 2 inch letters with a roller ball or felt tip. This may be overly cautious but this ink had run all over. I have customers write with a ball point on the line cover piece of fabric. I'm old for my age. Terry Urban D-8631 FAA DPRE

Sure. The are no laws requiring USPA membership. And there are dropzones which don't require membership. There are lots of people who choose not to spend the money and be USPA members. I'm old for my age. Terry Urban D-8631 FAA DPRE

I didn't think you (DBCOOPER) cared about the spot? "Anywhere over the northwest is fine." I'm old for my age. Terry Urban D-8631 FAA DPRE

You missed mine. I've had several and I packed them all. Of course all mine were before "packers" were available. But Michele, remember that a perfectly packed parachute can and do malfunction. It may or may not have ANYTHING to do with the packer or packing. Two of mine were line friction knots, one test jumping a relined canopy that wasn't flying right, and the last a PC in tow that cleared when the reserve was fired. I'll take blame for the last one, in 1987. I'm old for my age. Terry Urban D-8631 FAA DPRE

Free Flight Enterprises (FFE) makes three round emergency parachutes that are the factory stock parachutes used in Softies by Paraphernalia. The Preserve I is rated for upto 220lb (used to be 240lb), the Preserve III for up to 180 lbs and the new Preserve V currently rated for 275lb @ 150 knots. It's been tested faster but currently is rated as above. It's for the horizontally endowed pilot. It uses a bag deployment with break ties, line hesitator tubes and sacrificial bridle stitching. I'm old for my age. Terry Urban D-8631 FAA DPRE

You may have more people in the air in with low airspeed and little time to separate. Depending on altitude, forward speed and number exiting at once freefall/opening collisions may be more of a risk. Also may have people exiting both sides facing away from each other and not aware of each other in the air. Especially watch out for low timers who want to open high and may not be efficient trackers. I'm old for my age. Terry Urban D-8631 FAA DPRE

I usually recommend Sofites, but I'm a dealer. The FFE Preserve V is available for big guys. Actually I recommend what fits the purpose best. I pack for a bunch of warbird and aerobatic pilots. In your part of the country either get a Softie direct or from http://www.pia.com/silver/. Allen's web site has a couple of used/demo rigs for sale. Might check those out. I'm old for my age. Terry Urban D-8631 FAA DPRE

You know, I have an opinion but I'm not going to share it. Asking questions like this is like asking Ford or Chevy? Everyone has an opinion. Many are based on individual and maybe limited experience (good OR bad) and your experience may vary. Many opinions are based on marketing and may not have basis on real or important differences. Many opinions are regional. Most DZ's have "popular" rigs that are more based on history, dealer relationships, DZO's preference etc. than real differences. Many people have particular and perhaps reasonable opinions against Racers (me too) or Reflexs (I jump one). I've only bought two new, custom rigs in 23 years of jumping. One in 1982 and one in 1997. Three other new rigs were bought off the shelf. I had a list of rigs that were acceptable then went "shopping" to see what I could find ready to ship. I've also bought 5 or 6 used rigs in that time. I'm fairly satisfied with the function of most rigs. I've had issues with specific models or versions from most manufacturers. As a rigger I'm more concerned about the specific, individual rig/canopy combination and whether they match well. i.e. Is it a small cut rig in a particular size and a "large" individual canopy. Small things can make a rig "good" or "bad" to the individual. Chest strap height, leg strap fit, container length versus torso length, flexibility of containers with particular canopies, pressure points from housings, etc, etc, etc. None of this is much help. But you have to realize that even from riggers much of the response will be individual bias and may not be relevant. As stated above Price Availablity Service may be more important. When you do pick a rig it's probably more important to discuss that particular choice and canopy combination with a/your rigger and ask if they have any concerns. And wait till you try to pick colors and options. I'm old for my age. Terry Urban D-8631 FAA DPRE

By entertaining I ment watching the crashes. I'm old for my age. Terry Urban D-8631 FAA DPRE

Glad you got out of it. Did you consider flaring and hitting the fence? I've bounced off a couple of woven wire fences in my younger and stupider days. If your slow enough (1:1 Sabre might be) and don't hit a pole might be less dangerous than the turn. I know it's tough to decide what to do, but it's another option to consider in the future. I'm old for my age. Terry Urban D-8631 FAA DPRE

In addition, any electronic altimeter, audible or visual, by definition WILL fail when the batteries die. It might let you know, it might not. My 1980 Altimaster II has never skipped a beat. BTW I do wear an audible. I'm not a complete dinosaur. But I have no problem giving either the visual or audible to someone who for got theirs. I'm old for my age. Terry Urban D-8631 FAA DPRE

Loading a Falcon 1:1 would make for some interesting DZ entertainment. We didn't usually load them 1:1 when they were new. Falcons weren't popular in my area but the few people that had them were fairly happy. To me they didn't flare quite as well as Glide path 0-3 cfm fabric 9 cells. As stated its probably worth $200 to $300 if you can find someone that wants it for a third/water jump/smoke jump rig or someone up to about 190lbs just off student status who learned on non ZP canopies and doesn't have a lot of money. Again, with more than 4 or 500 jumps you'll probably get more money for it selling it to a college kid to hang on their ceiling. It's actually kind of sad that these canopies that served a lot of us well aren't worth much anymore. Of course neither is a console black and white TV. I'm old for my age. Terry Urban D-8631 FAA DPRE

A note. The pull test recommended/required by PD is NOT the same as PIA TS-108. TS-108 specs 40lbs and PD specs 30lbs. Some PIA members, including PD, feel that the 40 lb is too high for the fabrics used. PD is not the only one who advocated a lower test force. This is currently being discussed in the PIA Technical committee. In general, most comments I've heard at PIA meetings support pull testing ALL canopies. The debate is over the force. Some manufacturers maintain that 40lbs may damage "good" material. Another part of the debate in the other forum is whether "should" in the manual indicates that it is manditory. My interpretation would be recommended but not manditory. It has been reported that verbal conversation with PD indicates that they intend for it to be manditory. With the detail that they put in about performing and documenting the test I believe they intended it to be manditory and made a poor choice of words. In general I've been pull testing all older ram airs, plus 5 years or more, and been gradually moving to testing them all. Since I was previously aware of the force debate I've been testing to 35 lbs (another number put forward by the old PISA), except where mandated by AWD or service bulletin to use 40 lbs. I was aware that PD was advocating 30 lbs several years ago. Weak ram air canopies HAVE been found by others though I don't have the details available. I'm old for my age. Terry Urban D-8631 FAA DPRE

Per exposure is more technically right. The media wants per participant (maybe read "average" participant). But we all know that neither are a true assessment of any one individuals risk. If you don't do high performance landings your risk probably just went down. If you don't maintain your equipment your risk just went up. I usually tell people that by in large skydiving is as safe as you make it and that most fatalities, with notable exceptions, are human error on the skydivers part. Many of the others are human error on someone elses part. The easy comparison is driving. Driving drunk increases your risk. Driving only when it's sunny decreases your risk. As stated above 1 in a 1000 skydivers dying is not the same as you having 1 in a 1000 chance of dying. Your risk will vary with your actions or inactions. I'm old for my age. Terry Urban D-8631 FAA DPRE

Full face helmets came about from better and faster freefall relative work manuvers where jumpers were kicking each other in the face. A good friend of mine was killed by hitting her head on the door of a DC-3 and getting knocked out. Pre cypres days. Many of the impacts with the ground that result in injury are not necessarily fatal. They involve higher than normal impact speeds under an open parachute. But, they may result in a head injury as easily as bicycle, rollerblade, skate board, motorcylce, etc. accidents. Actually many "high quality" skydiving helmets offer less protection because they don't have crushable foam to absorb the impact force. Encourage him to buy an "in" helmet and wear it. But, this becomes an "I'll never get hurt" aguement issue. You might point out if he wears a helmet for any activities like those above he should wear one for skydiving. I'm old for my age. Terry Urban D-8631 FAA DPRE

No, your right. There is no other regulatory requirement that I know of. Of course if you want proof of experience for additional ratings or master ticket you might need it. And with battery changes, AAD service, various service bulletins, etc. and in the legal environment in this country (USA) I would and do chose to keep my records forever. In some case destroying records is safer than keeping records longer than necessary. If you don't have it you can't produce it. And in this case you can cite the regulation that doesn't require you to keep them. But, the packing data card will likely be around longer than 2 years, I've had people forge my name multiple times adding up to more than two years, and so I may be held accountable for my work for longer than two years. So I guess I chose to keep them. All so, it makes great history reading. My previous comments still stand for 2 years concidering the speed things change. Does anybody destroy their records after two years? Hmmm maybe I'll do a poll. And bring this up at the next PIA meeting also. I'm old for my age. Terry Urban D-8631 FAA DPRE

I your one no vote at the moment. I don't believe a web based system would even meet the intent of the regs let alone the letter. Who's responsible for 30, 40, 50 years of storage and backup? (I've been rigging for 20 years and I'm a pup.) Electronic signatures would have to be dealt with. If the FAA has already promulgated requirements for electronic signatures then you might be ok, but the FDA still hasn't fully solved this problem. A local system is fine. In fact I use one. It's called Excel. I keep not only the 5 or 6 items from the paper log but also all the component serial numbers, DOM's, service dates, colors, etc. But, I also keep my FAA minimum paper log. It will always be compatable with new technology. Of course it may burn in a fire but so might my PC. And it fits in my rigging kit. It something you might ask on the PIA riggers forum and I'll bring it up at the next PIA meeting in Feb. See what people think and use. I'm old for my age. Terry Urban D-8631 FAA DPRE

1600' just under the clouds. C-182 JM to the pilot, "Ok, when I tell you to climb, climb into the clouds to get us a couple hundred extra feet" Pilot "Okay" Jumper's in the back: "You going" "Man, I don't know, maybe. You?" "Hell, yes I'm going" "We'll I go too, I guess." JM "Okay climb" Jumpmaster counting then "Okay cut!" Jumper sitting student. "NO! NO CUT! We need the airspeed!" Sound of four canopies opening in the clouds, right over the DZ. Just another cloudy, rainy day at the DZ. I'm old for my age. Terry Urban D-8631 FAA DPRE

You can also make one for about $30 bucks in parts, a little sewing, and a little drilling just by looking at the picture. I'm old for my age. Terry Urban D-8631 FAA DPRE

She doesn't hear of no pull fatalities BECAUSE of AAD's. They used to be a significant portion of yearly deaths. Some (many?) because they were having too much fun and skydived all the way to the ground. A good friend was knocked unconscious on exit and died. (1985) I've seen lot and lots of RW break off at 1000 or less. Audibles have helped, and so have AAD's. I too have 1500 plus jumps without an AAD, not because I didn't want one but because I didn't want an FXC 12000. Skydiving with out an AAD is the one of the few situations where if you do NOTHING you will die. Skydiving with an AAD is different. You've no longer committed suicide unless you change your mind. All she needs to do is look at the lists of Cypres saves to see how many people who would NEVER NOT pull are alive in spite of themselves. I don't much care if someone choses not to use one. That's the sport I grew up in. But now there isn't a need to take that risk each and every jump unless you want to. Nobody ever wants their AAD to fire, but they do. If she doesn't want one fine, but not because she will never not pull. There are hundreds of dead skydivers who thought the same thing, including my friend. OK Rant off. Sorry I'm old for my age. Terry Urban D-8631 FAA DPRE

I flew Lufthansa Chicago to Munich and Back. Never blinked about my rig in the carry on with a cypres, last August. I sure the rest of the stuff is in the links above. I'm old for my age. Terry Urban D-8631 FAA DPRE

Forget the V. Every one I ever saw broke withing a year. My II is 23 years old and still going strong. I'm old for my age. Terry Urban D-8631 FAA DPRE

I had a customer blow up a Phantom round reserve. Deploy/FXC fired while tumbling. Broke the lower lateral band, torn to the apex, rode the crap to the ground. He survived but was broken up pretty good. He didn't blame me, I didn't blame me, and the factory didn't blame me. I'm old for my age. Terry Urban D-8631 FAA DPRE

There is a form and recommended procedure for reporting rigging errors on the PIA web site. http://www.pia.com/piapubs/TSDocuments/ts-116.pdf I hope either you've addressed the issues with the riggers involved and/or chose to use the process outlined. A couple of those can be preference, depending on what the manuals say, the toggles are life threatening, and the pull force is FAR violation and life threatening. In the past some of the more important incidents have been sent to PIA and the chair of the rigging committee (me at the moment) has followed up with the riggers involved. PM me if you would like. I'm old for my age. Terry Urban D-8631 FAA DPRE

The point is that a skydiver should never have the opportunity to cutaway, see an open reserve before pulling the RC, and decide not to. Cutaway, pull the reserve. How long was he going to wait? What took him so long to pull? I couldn't stop myself from pulling if I wanted to. It's what we DO. WE open parachtues. And, sometimes, we have backups to save us when we screw up. Cutaway and wait for the RSL? It'll be the time that the shackle breaks, the rigger screwed up, you forgot to hook it back up after CRW. I had a rigging customer with a few hundred jumps get taken low in a RW formation. He hurried the throw out and managed to wrap his PC around his front. He used the emergency procedure of pulling his cutaway anyway and then pulling his reserve. But, for a split second, he thought after pulling the cutaway that "I have an RSL, I don't need to pull the reserve."! Obviously, since he told me about it, he remembered that it wasn't going to work and pulled. Don't wait and don't rely on the backup. Now, if you've ALREADY screwed up, should be dead because you didn't pull your reserve but your RSL did and saved your ass, and the canopy is open and flying, I guess why bother. Land, sell your gear, and take up golf. Hmmm, I guess I have an opinion. I'm old for my age. Terry Urban D-8631 FAA DPRE