Hooknswoop

Batteries = 2 yrs from date of installation. I think they have a 3 yr shelf-life. 4 yr and 8 yr service = +/- 3 months. Hook

It has happened............ Hook

Even on non-BOC deployments, looking for the handle causes a de-arch. Better to be able to pull stable w/o having to look while on the S/L that to get wrapped up in your deploying PC and bridle. I learned the S/L method w/ the ripcord on the M/L/W too, and SOS. Wish I didn't now. ROL leaves exposed bridle and needs velcro that has to be maintained. It is diffucult to replace the velcro for ROL on rigs. I don't think I have ever seen anyone actually maintain ROL velcro. Not to say that no-one does, but they are defiantely a minority. BOC throw-out seems to me the wat to go, for students and experienced jumpers alike. The closer the student gear is to eperienced/up-jumper the gear is, the less re-training and better trained the student is. Why train someone to drive an automatic, when their first car is a stick-shift? Hook

Do you look for your handle? teaching students to look for the handle causes them to de-arch, everytime. They rarely actaully see the handle anyway and when they are jumping by themselves, they don't look for the handle anymore. I have taught AFF w/ BOC's for a few years now and haven't had very many problems w/ students finding the handle. They could look all they want and they would never be able to see it. Best advice I have for DRCP's (and this applies to all your skydives) is to visualize the skydive on the ground, going exactly as it should. I'm sure you've seen up-jumpers "dirt diving", do the same thing. If you can picture it correctly on the ground in your mind's eye, the actual skydive should go exactly the same way. Hook

Reserves open hard, nature of the beast. They have to get TSO'd. I think it is a good characteristic to have in a reserve. Hook

I took him on most, if not all, of his AFP jumps. Hook

is this the fatality you are refering to? From: http://www.skydivingfatalities.com/ 5 Date Location Category Age # Jumps AAD?/RSL? ~2/20/2002 Skydive Spaceland, Texas LOWT ?? ~200 N/A/N/A Description: After an uneventful hop and pop from a Cessna 182, this jumper initiated a hard front rider turn at ~80ft while heading downwind. He had completed the turn and had transitioned to pulling both front risers down when he impacted the group. He has unresponsive for perhaps 10 minutes, and received immediate medical care from an EMT who was present at the scene. He died about 2 weeks later at hospital. He was jumping a Sabre 120, loaded at perhaps 1.5 lb/ft^2 or more. There was no canopy traffic, and the landing area was wide an open. He had not attemped many high performance landings in the past, though he had briefly discussed how to do them with an instructor. Lessons: Learning to make high-performance landings is a high-risk endeavor. It is probably best learned with larger canopies (1.1-1.3lb/ft^2) before moving to more heavily loaded ones. additionally, shallow turns or even straight in approaches should be mastered before moving to 180's. Hook

http://www.relativeworkshop.com/pdf_files/pl_RIGGING.pdf RWS website lists a free-fly mod for $18.00 and main closing flap free-fly elastic for $20.00. Hook

After watching the clip, the large jump in the graph occurs after the canopy leaves the bag. Looks like an awefully large PC too. Looks large enough to be considered a drogue. Edited to add the pic. Hook

Where is the best place to wear a Pro-Track for wing suit flying to get the most accurate results? Hook

PC size?, Deployment speed? Suspended weight? I find a PC and bag producing 29 G's amazing. I'm guessing this wasn't a live person being subjected to those forces. Hook

I think the common defination of line dump, is the PC pulling hard/fast enough that the locking stows come un-done before the canopy comes out of the bag. This allows tha canopy to begin inflating before the lines are taut. I think line dump is extremely rare and is blamed for hard openings when it isn't the culprit. So, you are saying a bag lock can produce 29 G's? Hook

I have seen lots and lots of videos of deploying canopies. Some of them were very hard openings. I have never seen video of line dump or talked to someone that has. I posted a while back asking if anyone had video of line dump. I think I got two responses neither could actually put their hands on the video. Edited, found my original post http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=271898;search_string=line%20dump;#271898 One reply of a tandem line dump. Heavy lines, wide bag, packers, one heck of a PC (collasped drogue) "Line Dump What is it? Line dump is when the pilot chute pulls hard enough on the bad and/or the line stows that hold the bag closed are loose and or small enough that the canopy is yanked out of the bag before the lines are taut. The canopy begins to inflate and then the lines go taunt, resulting in an extremely hard opening. The opening could result in injury and/or equipment damage (broken lines, torn fabric, etc) For this to happen, the line stows that hold the deployment bag shut must be released before the line tension would release them normally. If the other, non-locking stows released early, the only difference should be a faster, not harder opening. How loose would the locking stows have to be? That depends. Size of the deployment bag, distance between the locking stows, weight of the bag, amount of force the pilot chute delivers at your opening speed are all factors. Taking some measurements on an old Sun Path Javelin J3 main deployment bag, I found that the bag is 13 inches wide. This is how far apart the line stows are. The locking stows are 5 inches apart. If you make 2 inch line stows, you have 8 inches of line on the outside of 2 bands with 13 inches on line between the bands. So there is 5 inches more line between the band. Since there is more line between the stows of the stows, the line between the stows is heavier and if you accelerated the bag enough, the lines would be pulled out of the stows, creating line dump. The line stow bands would have to be loose or the bag accelerated at a pretty high rate to achieve this. The heavier the line and the farther apart the stows, the bigger the problem. Why not make line stows that put an equal amount of line outside the stow as inside? The larger the stow, the larger the chance that one stow could find its way inside another stow, creating a bag-lock. Also, larger line stows tend to turn the bag. As a line is pulled out of the stow, the bag is tilted at an angle and is exposed to the relative wind and it is easy for the bag to spin. The same thing happens with very tight stows, the bag spends more time tilted at an angle, possibly being spun by the wind. Now look at the old style J3 bag again. The locking stows are 5 inches apart. If you make 2 inch stows, there is 8 inches of line outside the stows and 5 inches between the stows. The line outside the stows is heavier and high acceleration of the deployment bag does not tend to create line dump. Acceleration tends to hold the stows in place until line tension pulls them out. Only if the locking stows were to break allowing the canopy to come out of the bag could the canopy open hard. Looking at a Sun Path Javelin J3 reserve free-bag, the locking stows are only 4 inches apart. With 2 inch locking stows, there is 4 inches of line outboard of each stow and 4 inches of line between stows. There an even amount of weight inboard and outboard of the stows. So even loose stows shouldn't result in line dump and a hard opening. Looking at reserve packing instructions, I found the Dolphin manual says 2-3 inch locking stows, the Mirage manual says 2 inches for micro-line and up to 3 inches foe Dacron line, and the Reflex manual says 1 ½ inch locking stows." I believe canopies inflate in 3 "stages" Stage 1- once he canopy is out of the bag, it will "snivel" until the nose catches a bit of air and it begins to pressurize, making the bottom skin slightly larger than the slider. Stage 2- The bottom skin begins to inflate, out-pacing the pressurization of the canopy. The slider slides down the lines Stage 3- Canopy pressurization. I think hard openings are caused by; high speed deployments, Stage 1 initial pressurization being too much/too fast, exposing too much of the bottom skin around the slider, creating a faster stage 2 bottom skin inflation, pressurization catching up to bottom skin inflation which forces the slider down the lines too quickly and causes stage 2 and 3 to happen simultaneously, or not keeping the slider all the way up against the stops. A canopy that has a pocketed slider that takes too long to open can be very easily fixed by making the pocket smaller or removing it. If it is a large pocket I would recommend making it smaller (sewing across it and trimming the excess), if it a small pocket, remove it. Hook

F-111 (Exacta Chute or others really) fabric doesn't have the flare performance that ZP does. Common rule of thumb is nothing over 1:1. After that good landings can become a challenge and even good technique can sometimes result in a "firm" landings at best. Sounds like most of his jumps are on a 245 at a 0.92:1 wing loading. He is wanting to move down to a 139 at a 1.63:1 wing loading. With 215 jumps this puts him in a very high risk catagory. See: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=304270;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;forum_view=forum_view_collapsed;;page=unread#unread I know you asked to avoid to downsizing debate, but you should have simply asked about F-111 at a 1.32:1 wing loading. I can't ignore the rest of your post. I don't consider myself a "canopy nazi", but I still offer advice if I see/hear something that I don't thik is a good idea. I am not saying that if your friend jumps this canopy at that wing loading, he will be injured/killed, I am saying that he is putting himself in a situation with a high risk of injury/death. He needs to be fully aware of the risk he is taking. People tend to not fully understand the risk level they are exposing themselves to, until after they are injured. Then they reduce their risk level by up-sizing their canopy. Hook

There has been some test jumping done at Leadville. PD military stuff. Hook

1. Javelin 2. Vector 3. Voo Doo Don't worry about how easy the reserve is to re-pack, worry about quality, pin, bridle, and riser protection. Hook

I remember reading about an incident where the batteries leaked (they were way over the 2 year replacement cycle). Also rubber bands react w/ the brass grommets and can stick to lines. It is good to take the pressure off the reserve locking stow. Hook

A method for 2+ ways I have heard of is the low guy holds a bandana or rag is his pull hand. If the top guy hasn't pulled when he sees the bandana leave the bottom guys hand, he pulls quick. Like a really fast, hard to miss wave off. Hook

http://www.pia.com/piapubs/dualsq.pdf.pdf This is the link to the 2 canopy out study. They did a total of 31 jumps. 10 by the military and 21 by Scott Miller, all using large-ish canopies. The study was intended for student training guidelines, not for experienced jumpers under small canopies. They even mention that for a complete study smaller canopy combintaions and different sized canopies need to be tested. I have experiemented (and have plans for more jumps soon) with two canopies out and the biggest lesson I learned is that you cannot predict how 2 canopies will interact together. I don't think there is a "one size fits all" solution for 2 canopies out and that makes it a dangerous situation. (i.e. what should I do if my VX-60 and MR-109-M are out together?, what should I do if my Safire 189 and Fury 220R are out together?) One combiation that I thought would fly fine together didn't and another combinatin that I thought would entangle, didn't. Hook

I watched a HEMMITT (8 wheeled monster) back over a new truck at HAAF, in GA. The driver said he thought he was had hit the curb........... Hook

Hook

With the PD-170 and the Safire 189(really a 174) in a side-by-side, they flew together without any input. On another jump, I intentionally put them into a down-plane, but they woudn't stay that way, they would return to the side-by-side. With the Safire 189 (174) and the Stilleto entangled, I didn't make any attempts to prevent them fro entangling or to control them in a ny way. I sat back and watched. As fast as it happened, deciding what to do then putting my hands up into 2 sets rapidily moving and loaded risers would not have been a good idea. I think if they fly together, let'm, if not, release the main. Trying to keep two canopys that don't want to fly together, together is inviting disaster if you lose the control battle at low altitude. Two canopys out is a completely avoidable situation. Hook

A PD-170 and a Stiletto 97 flew fine together. A Safire 189 and a PD-170 flew fine together. A Safire 189 and a Stiletto 97 down planed, then entangled, quickly. I am going to do more 2 out tests soon, with video this time. Hook

It depended on the combination if they entangled or not. Hook

Just a thought, could be that your both correct. Packing can cause line-overs, by not controlling the steering lines and allowing them to get in front of the nose, or on a hard opening (fall rate, packing, or the type of canopy) as it breathes, it throws a line around the front, or a combination of the two???? Hook