councilman24

One correction. A base canopy manufacturer supplied all the necessary measurements, specs and line to manufacture a new line set. Made me decide i don't want to do it very often. I'll leave it it to MEL or the factory. I'm old for my age. Terry Urban D-8631 FAA DPRE

As noted above the manual service life and communication of service life earlier requiring factory testing at 10 years and max 15 years is from GQ in England. Your looking at the wrong manual. The US manual does not have it in it but that hasn't been published since before 1984. Link to US manual. http://www.uk-skydiver.co.uk/cms/files/file/2887-350-sbpdf/ I have never maintained that the UK life limit LEGALLY applied to the old US stuff but GQ had left the US market by the time it was issued and I believe that they would have applied it to US gear if they were still making it at the time. Anyway is was part of my justification to customers as to why I wouldn't pack them. IF it still has a SAC in it Jerry or some other approved entity had to have performed the alternate means of compliance with the AD that grounded them all. If replaced the risers had to be modified to remove sewn in canopy and allow installation of another. At the time some/many were replaced with old model Phantom canopies (pre Aerostar) which had their own acid mesh and structural issues. These things, along with the fact that the your entire rig is over thirty five years old and no GQ pilot rig in the US is newer than 32 years old, and these are often left in gliders and other aircraft and often show significant to extreme fading is enough for me to have decided not to pack them a long time ago. But I'm the picky rigger. I won't pack 50 year old military rigs like some manufacturers and many riggers will. In fact I don't pack military containers at all because I believe my customers should have a diaper deployment system. I know lots of riggers do pack them but I chose not to. It up to you. BTW Butler has a statement like Nationals but it's very hard to find. And at least at one point Strong wouldn't work on their PEP's older than 20 years (they'd pack other manufacturer's gear older) but that does seem to have varied. BTW PIA will NEVER issue a time based life limit recommendation unless committee membership changes drastically. We have decided to leave that to the manufacturers and have decided that to the rigging and technical committee members wear and condition is more important than time. And PIA is an international organization and many other countries take on the issue of life limit directly by regulation. I'm old for my age. Terry Urban D-8631 FAA DPRE

Your not getting an answer and I can't help. But I'm sure you remember that the training also includes all of the cargo chutes and rigging payloads for all manner of drops and deployments. Last I knew they still used a hot knife tacker for patches. I do have a contact if I can find his card that may help. I'll look. I'm old for my age. Terry Urban D-8631 FAA DPRE

Trim charts do not give you all the information you need to replicate a factory set of lines. I'm old for my age. Terry Urban D-8631 FAA DPRE

Opportunity passed. Thanks. I'm old for my age. Terry Urban D-8631 FAA DPRE

Some/many/most reserve pillows have an oval metal ring inside that acts like a metal ripcord handle with the cable coming in the top and slack before the ball. The pillow is built around it. At least now. When they were first produced in the 80's they did not have any slack. Lift up your rig by the reserve ripcord housing with your rig fully packed and swing it around. If your reserve doesn't pop your probably ok but I would not be satisfied with one inch of slack no even if it didn't pop. The ripcord can be replaces with a longer one. I'm old for my age. Terry Urban D-8631 FAA DPRE

If its on the written test it must be written down somewhere, either Poynter's, the first FAA rigger manual or the second. Can't be on test without written reference. But i've never seen it. I'm old for my age. Terry Urban D-8631 FAA DPRE

Has depended on the rig over the years. If your looking for a particular rig call manufacturer. Don't have one in front of me to measure. Thirty years ago one rig had one about eighteen inches long and caused a knotted PC for one friend twice in two weeks. I'm old for my age. Terry Urban D-8631 FAA DPRE

3 year service life on a metal reserve ripcord? Not hardly. Your photos are almost too close but it is a pin intended to have the cable run through it to the next pin on a multi pin ripcord. Many one pin ripcords are made with these pins. After swaging the cable it cut and ground smooth. Again the photo isn't clear but it looks like some of the pin was ground away to expose the side of some of the cable and some strands have come untwisted. You could grind it smooth again but I'd question the integrity of the pin. The strength of the swage can be tested. The advantage of not using a terminal pin is that you can see if the cable is slipping. A new ripcord is probably in order but I'd expect Mirage to replace it as defective. The ripcord, unless allowed to corrode or physically damaged, ought to last the life of several rigs. Alternative explination is that the shaft near the pin wasn't swaged well and wasn't gripping the cable allowing it to unravel. Hard to tell from photos. Still means defective RC that Mirage should replace. I'm old for my age. Terry Urban D-8631 FAA DPRE

Maybe you're not his type? Reword, like I did. I'm old for my age. Terry Urban D-8631 FAA DPRE

Any activity is risk management. Golf, scuba, rock climbing, riding a motorcycle. Where is she drawing the line? At video games? YOU are responsible for the level of risk WITHIN skydiving that you are going to take. Or withing scuba or drag racing or hiking. You can minimize the risk. But you'll never eliminate it. With the advent of AAD's, and their proper use along with the rest of the gear, it is much safer now. But it always been with very few examples mainly jumper error that causes injury and death. Should have married a skydiver like me. I'm old for my age. Terry Urban D-8631 FAA DPRE

Might want ask a favor. I'm old for my age. Terry Urban D-8631 FAA DPRE

We keep losing information not being passd on to baby riggers. Have had a couple not realize or know that bumpers must be tacked down but can be tacked down in a way that lets you check the barrel. A friend had a malfunctuon and reserve ride into his eedding due to a bumper up the lines. Riggers that have only seen soft links sometimes don't know the critical nature of tacking the bumpers down. Baby riggers don't sometimes aren't taught the preferred orientation, not to use chinese hardware store links, that PD specs a torque on barrels or what was meant by ail polish. Tb6ese are the things lost in faster instructjon that i think are important for riggers to understand. And L bars, speed links, drag links need to be discussed because often found on pilot rigs. Had one trained senior candidate taking a test that didn't know, was never taught, that friction adapters an be upside down. I'm old for my age. Terry Urban D-8631 FAA DPRE

You typed faster than me. And I looked up a bunch of stuff, can't trust my memory anymore. I'm old for my age. Terry Urban D-8631 FAA DPRE

Mirage is certified under TSO C-23b (issued 1962), no mention of RSL. The current Mirage is manufactured under the TSO approval of a rig designed and approved in the late 70's, just as the Vector III is manufactured under TSO C-23b approval of the Wonderhog in the 1970's. Javelin's latest TSO is C-23d (issued 1994), which requires testing of an RSL during required breakaway testing. Two very different certification standards. I'm old for my age. Terry Urban D-8631 FAA DPRE

And please stop saying you've never heard of any. The Laser counts. And frankly it's scary that reserve fabric can be that dead. If you missed it it didn't fail at 20lbs. It failed as soon as I started to laod it, 1-3 lbs. And the acid mesh rounds failing weren't all the same type fabric if any. No matter when it was made it's the same/similar spec fabric as today. Maybe not made well but it was supposed to be. The good thing is that it and Rob's (that's two) are the only ones I've heard of. BTW I've never defended or used the 40lbs for 0-3 cfm fabric. My aguement is that pulling with clamps is better than pushing with a thumb. If you want to change/get rid of TS-108 come to the PIA meetings. I'm old for my age. Terry Urban D-8631 FAA DPRE

Two specific questions you missed. What do you use to decide if a cell needs to be replaced in a main? Your an icarus service center, you must use something. Sampling? And specifics on canopies damaged at test sites? I'm old for my age. Terry Urban D-8631 FAA DPRE

Terry, you are getting old. You are starting to repeat yourself. Terry, you are getting old. You are starting to repeat yourself. I have to repeat myself, I can't remember I said it the first time. I'm old for my age. Terry Urban D-8631 FAA DPRE

Here's a photo I found on here. Looks maybe home made using a stool and maybe a mechanics crawler? http://www.dropzone.com/safety/General_Safety/Coaching_in_the_World_of_Skydiving_941.html I'm old for my age. Terry Urban D-8631 FAA DPRE

And you know I don't agree with you. We don't have to agree. I believe done correctly it is not destructive or damaging. Apparently so do Raven Balloon company and the FAA as the test method (and my clamps) come from the balloon industry and can be found in http://ravenaerostar.com/files/uploads/hab/acai/ACAI-Part-II-Appendix-Revision-E-02-04-13.pdf For the truely destructive tear test fabric is removed and the area patched. Not required for the tensile test needed for balloon envelope certification. ***The reason is this: 1.There have been failures of canopy fabric in the area of a previous pull test. This proves the fact that pull testing is damaging the fabric during the test as the failures originated from the area of a previous test. You keep saying this. We both know the testing can be done incorrectly by inexperienced and poorly trained riggers. And at times by well trained and experienced riggers. Mains or reserves? Numbers? Details? Canopy model and manufacturer? Evidence of improper TS-108 or thumb testing? Why do you keep ignoring the Laser I found? I could have showed it to you when you were here. Looked completely normal. Failed at completely degraded level or 1 to 3 lbs, twice. I had tested 10 to 15 canopies for the same reason, transfer of coating from free bag to canopy noticed by fail, and only one has failed. But that canopy would have failed drastically, perhaps fatally. And of course there are all of the round canopies that had fabric that looked normal and failed drastically. Failures were always a surprise. And again not only due to acid mesh. What do you propose as an alternative? Not sure I've ever heard. What do use to check worn and faded main fabric? I just calibrated my thumb. Normal force exerted would be between 6 to 10 lbs in a much smaller area in puncture or shear mode verses tensile mode. Do you consider this destructive of good fabric too? I surely limit testing that I do. Even people that do it right can make a mistake at times. But I'm not going to throw away my clamps and scale. But we've had this discussion way to many times. I'm waiting to see if there are any other reserve canopies found. I'm old for my age. Terry Urban D-8631 FAA DPRE

I'm waiting to see if there is anyone else. I've been asking for 15 years and haven't found anyone else that had a ram air reserve fail. In the days of the rounds with "acid mesh" failing everyone thought it was just the mesh. But I had a round that was bias constructed with two panels in one gore next to one piece of mesh. Both panels, pieces of material, had seen the exact same conditions and exposure to the mesh since being sewn together. There was no way of knowing if both panels, both the same color, came from one bolt of cloth or even different manufacturers. One panel was completely dead, 1 to 2 pounds to tear. The other was full strength. It was never just the mesh. Then finding the Laser ram air, no mesh in sight, with an area completely degraded confirmed it wasn't just the mesh. BTW I still have the Laser. I'm old for my age. Terry Urban D-8631 FAA DPRE

Standing. Do really have a clue what your asking. Go watch people land. Don't do what 3/4 of them do. I'm old for my age. Terry Urban D-8631 FAA DPRE

Standing. Do really have a clue what your asking. Go watch people land. Don't do what 3/4 of them do. I'm old for my age. Terry Urban D-8631 FAA DPRE

tell us where you are I'm old for my age. Terry Urban D-8631 FAA DPRE

I have. APS Laser 250R App. 10 years old. TS--108 Failed at minimum force. 1 to 3 lbs. At tail where coating from freebag had transfered. I'm old for my age. Terry Urban D-8631 FAA DPRE