pchapman

I've told this one before. I don't know the details but I think you can see how the culprit was nabbed: Jumper gets gear and jumpsuit stolen from car in town. Months later a whuffo comes to the DZ to take the first jump course... wearing a skydiving jumpsuit.

One obvious question is whether the Argus is being continued for other than the sport parachute market -- is it a total shut down, or just pulling back from one market? One of the things done in the 4 year check is this: "Transmission of historical data to the factory to determine if there are any issues with previous performance." I wonder if that will still be part of it. Presumably service centres will still want to provide 4 year checks to get some income out of whatever equipment they purchased in order to do so. The Aviacom web site has not yet been updated to reflect this new notice.

So you don't just hang out here on dz.com providing rigging tips!

Aerodyne has had some bad luck with quoting people in ads, haven't they?? Wasn't it Adria Allen who was featured in an ad, saying how she loved her Aerodyne Pilot or something like that. By the time the ad appeared, she was already dead from turning her Aerodyne canopy too low. Not Aerodyne's fault, but it turned out to be a less than impressive testimonial...

Reserve pack job was a couple months old, when I assembled that part of the gear. The previous pack job had been in '83 though, when it was in another rig. The guys at Strong got a chuckle when I sent them photos of using a rather old design of theirs. And the fellow with the zoom lens was using a 400mm lens -- that sure helps for the up close views. The rig is now on its way to my friend in Latvia, minus a main ripcord that I have to build anew. Straight pins sure are expensive, I see in ParaGear, $15 each. Glad it is just a 2 pin rig. (I see that today, piisfish, you're keeping the DB Cooper thread down towards the bottom of the page!

They must have downsized too quickly!

I'll add that pushing the boundaries may or may not add a lot of extra risk, depending on the type of boundaries. Certainly there is more risk when one is starts playing close to the ground (BASE proximity flying). There was extra risk for those pioneering skysurfing, and there is for those doing CRW on smaller and smaller canopies (sub 100 crossbraced). But if you have a better 4 way training system, your risk doesn't go up much. RW jumpers have had to add full face helmets in the last 20 years, but there hasn't been a big increase in risk despite much higher point totals in competition. VRW has added risks due to quickly varying drag from different body positions, but still that aspect of the sport has advanced greatly without a lot of carnage. That's all just to say that depending on how you define "boundaries", there are also some ways of advancing the sport that don't leave a trail of bodies -- even if it may be unavoidable in other areas.

Just a point about terminology, Shah: I'm wondering if you are thinking of "flat turn" in a different sense. We normally think of a "flat turn" implying a braked turn, that is, both toggles are held down somewhat. It would indeed be an odd plan, as others have said, to do some accelerated turns (front risers) in the pattern and then do a braked flat turn to final. But you might have been thinking of a "flat turn" only in the sense that you weren't hooking it sharply into a steep turn. We'd then just say a shallow turn, gradual turn, or something like that. "Flat turn" tends to have a specific skydiving meaning beyond not having a sharp bank angle. I think...

I've wondered about that sort of thing. In skydiving, if you break a bone, you're a screwup. It is forgivable if you are a total newbie, but if you were swooping, you're not only an idiot but a shameful black mark upon the sport. I get the impression that breaking something isn't that uncommon for even the experienced recreational BMX rider. (Attitudes towards risk depend on how likely injuries are when doing a certain activity, and to what degree the risks are controllable. So there are of course factors other than the culture of the two sports at work here.)

It is good to hear from Vigil AAD on this matter. I understand that skydiving manufacturing companies don't always tell the public about every little imperfection with their product. If a rig manufacturer adjusts the template for their tuck tabs on a certain rig size, they don't necessarily tell us. But when it comes to AAD's, which are supposed to be very reliable, tend to work or not work, and have to be fully working for some people to jump, people get more suspicious when information is withheld. I guess in a cold business decision, one can decide which is worse: a) a service bulletin about something that is rare but won't kill anyone (just ground them), or b) having the problem come out in public before the company says anything. A company may make the decision based on to what degree users will want replacement parts, and to what degree the issue is seen negatively by the buying public. Maybe the business decision is to not mention the problem and see if anyone else picks up on it. One little dz.com thread will likely largely soon be forgotten. Personally I am less interested in whether an AAD company had a problem, than how they act to deal with it. My opinion is that not being upfront about the problem stinks, and I hope people remember this situation. I'd be equally hard on any of the AAD companies about openness when there's a problem. Now some Vigil users are going to be wondering if they have a unit that has a software issue in some batch not revealed to them, that has a small chance (?) to cause them to be grounded at an inconvenient time. This also brings up the issue: If a Vigil won't turn on correctly, but later does turn on correctly (if that is possible), does one: a) ground the unit, or b) just say, "don't worry, probably just from that quirky LCD batch" and keep jumping? Users will need some guidance.

To summarize, Airtec says that the cutter activated because of cable damage and thus a short circuit, which fired the cutter without the computer recording an activation. They believe the cable was damaged by rough handling at some time. The cutter was not the one that came with the Cypres 2 originally, but a 10+ year old one off a Cypres 1, that had never been sent in for servicing. (The Cypres 1 & 2 mixing is OK, other than that the Cypres 1 connector is not waterproof.) They essentially admit that the investigation took longer than it should have, because at first they didn't check whether the cutter firing could have come from a damaged cable. My comments: Presumably damaged cables are quite rare and they haven't seen many of them, explaining why that wasn't what they first suspected. (This would probably be a different issue than that of the fitting between the metal cutter body and the cutter cable, where older ones were more flexible, and newer ones harder, leading to a few broken cutters in some rigs where the cutters take a lot of force. That came up in a dz.com discussion in the last year or so.) Airtec implies that there was no opportunity for them to notice whether the cabling might have been damaged, because the cutter had never been sent in. So it appears that the Cypres' internal checks can detect some but not all wiring faults in the cutter cable. (e.g., Cypres 1 code 8997 for a cable error) The Cypres 2 manuals, both older and newer ones I have seen, do state (in a highlighted box) that spare cutters still need 4 year checks! The Cypres 1 manual, however, does not seem to mention this. The Cypres 1 manual never got much updating. The current edition on the SSK site is the 2001 version, which is very close to the original version, with hand sketched drawings. Early Cypres' did not have a field replaceable cutter so the issue of spare cutters wouldn't have come up when the manual was written. The manual was updated to show the connection for the field replaceable cutter, but didn't mention maintenance for spare cutters. I don't know if any other documents (e.g. on the SSK site) might have asked for Cypres 1 cutters to be checked at 4 yr intervals too. So while Airtec may have always intended for spare cutters (once they were field replaceable) to be checked every four years, this seems not to have been communicated to users until the Cypres 2 era. (Correct me if I'm wrong.) Leaving aside the issue of the factory checking spare cutters, one wonders whether the damage to the cable would have been visible to a rigger, whether looking for damage specifically or not. I also notice that this year SSK has included small cards showing a photo of a new cable stowage method, if one receives a Cypres back from servicing. Perhaps a coincidence. This method wraps some of the cable within the main pouch, instead of coiling it all under the small cable cover, where the cable could easily get kinked right next to the long cutter connection plug. In the end it comes down to the ideas that spare cutters are supposed to get 4 year checks too, and that if a cable is physically damaged, a cutter can inadvertently fire. Despite the idea that AAD's are working fine if they pass their self test, not all errors can be found -- especially a short circuit that hasn't yet occurred. It does make me wonder how power is distributed in the cutter cable -- I would have thought when a cutter isn't being activated, there would be no power supplied to the cutter cable at all, so a short circuit would not matter. Hmm.

Nothing hi res or extra gory but a different view is seen in a short part within in a news video linked from http://www.theblaze.com/stories/horrific-new-video-shows-close-up-of-reno-plane-as-it-crashed/. The videographer was in the grandstands behind the impact area; Galloping Ghost comes directly overhead. The videographer (surprisingly) loses it from view only a moment. CNN has http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2011/09/20/von-reno-air-crash-new.kgw?hpt=hp_t2 -- a little better than the earliest videos but from a similar vantage point some way down the grandstands. The sound of impact - a rather bland thump really - sticks in one's mind. Best pics I've seen are still https://picasaweb.google.com/yahyoubetcha.net/RenoAirRaceCrash# (Other than the couple high res shots of the trim tab coming off, or tailwheel out during the dive - don't know if there are others in that series somewhere.)

I'd add more to that: That's highlighting the point that starting with two different situations, the best possible outcome may be the same, a perfectly soft, slow landing. What changes is how easy it is to achieve that soft landing -- whether there is plenty of time during the flare to adjust the flare, or whether one has to flare hard and fast and be spot-on to get that soft landing. Even if it is true that one can land OK from partial brakes on many canopies, it sure is a heck of a lot easier to land starting with more speed. Over the years I bet a bunch of us have seen situations like this: A newbie having trouble flaring the used Sabre 1 they bought. The first thing we notice is that their spectra brake lines have shrunk and in "full flight" they are actually pulling a few inches of brake. Give them new brake lines and their flares suddenly get a whole lot better. It isn't that a good pilot couldn't flare the canopy the old way, but it sure is easier with the extra speed to start with.

All that sounds great Shah - and I'm being serious, not facetious. A nice easy front riser 90 is a good way to get into learning accelerated landings. It is just a small turn, the landing area stays visible the whole time, and it fits into a standard pattern. Of course there are no guarantees that you won't hurt yourself, and it feels like some people would have a jumper make a thousand jumps on a canopy before being allowed to dare to ask about swooping. There's more resistance to turbulence in accelerated flight, and more energy for a nice flare. More speed, more flare power. The resistance to turbulence isn't so much about higher cell pressure, but that the change in angle of attack due to a given random gust will be smaller if one is at higher speed. One caution is that a sudden application of front riser will decrease resistance to turbulence just at that moment where angle of attack is suddenly lowered. So a smooth gentle initiation is important if there's any concern over turbulence. Also make sure your maneuvering fits in with whatever pattern rules they have where you are landing.

Hi Lou, To go into more detail about other failures, I think it was something like 2 Cypres' in the last decade, and maybe 3 or 4 Vigils (before the recent stuff) -- so it was never an epidemic. As for the DZ and whether anything is unusual: In this case the rigs are in the big hangar, and turned on there, in a temperate climate summer (Ontario, Canada). It isn't as if problems were occurring only after cold soaking at -20C in winter or stored in a tin shed in the desert. The only thing even slightly odd that I can think of, is that the runway is maybe 50' lower than the hangar area, and the LZ 20' lower than the hangar area. Everyone turns on their AAD in the hangar and no corrections are applied. Those numbers don't get into the +/- 150ft mentioned in the Vigil manual, although it does actually interact with statements in the Cypres manual about not flying below the set landing elevation. I'm sure the DZ rigger will be busy talking to A.A.D. & pulling AADs from rigs. Even before this, the DZO decided to buy a mix of both Cypres and Vigil -- so that he isn't 100% screwed if one day some company or organization decides to ground a particular brand....

DZ altitude 650 ft (200m)... nothing unusual And thanks Dave L for the reminder about the other thread.

N/A

At a DZ I go to there have been 5 Vigils that failed to boot up and stay on properly in the last few weeks. Anyone else seeing such weird stuff happen?? I personally only saw 3 of the cases. A couple Vigil's were quite friendly, showing "Hello" but not turning off or proceeding further. Another brand new one had problems booting, but when recycled and apparently OK, it shut itself off and did so again once or twice when restarted. (The rig was kept on the ground.) Apparently, the DZ rigger says, 4 are from one batch bought at the same time by the DZ -- likely roughly early this year, I'm guessing from the rigs they were in. The other was recently purchased and installed. I'm not a rigger there, so I don't have any more info to report, like production dates. The DZ has a mix of Cypres and Vigil. Over the years, failures on the ground have happened to both, just a couple for the Cypres and a little more for the Vigil -- until all these recent failures. It probably won't happen, but let's try to keep focused on the narrow issue and not degenerate into the usual arguments about "Vigil sucks!" vs. "Cypres sucks too!". While any AAD can have a problem, I was there and saw multiple Vigils crapping out on startup in the last couple weekends.

EAA's Sport Aviation magazine had an article on Galloping Ghost in its May '11 issue. (maxmadmax provided the link; don't know if it is active for non EAA members) Leeward said he runs 150 gallons of fuel and 150 gallons of 50/50 methanol water. (For the boil off cooling system since the belly radiator was removed.) I don't know how that might vary for a given race, but the fuel number sounds in the right ballpark for their kind of horsepower for a short race flight. With the clipped wings on that aircraft, it stalls at about 130 mph, and final approach is done at 190. A hot ship. From aviation sites I've seen, I'm hearing it said that the telemetry was showing an 11g pull up. (There's a forum called "Hangar Talk" that seems to get some pilots involved or interested in air racing, so they've had some of higher quality discussion that I've seen.) In some of the pics out there, one could see the pilot's emergency parachute canopy streaming out after the impact, as part of the debris being scattered. I've attached a google maps view I found on the web of the race course. Even though the course is always seen to be "out in the desert", there sure are a few subdivisions not that far outside the course -- as well as the main airport pits / spectator area, when one considers where the turn points are. Everything may be legit when it comes to FAA rules on X feet between the aircraft maneuvering area and spectators, but there sure isn't much buffer when one is playing at up to 500 mph.

There's going to be some speed at which a plane is trimmed neutrally, where if everything is set up OK, no up or down trim is needed. Slow down, and you'll need nose up trim to be able to maintain 1G upright flight, without constantly hauling back on the stick. Speed up, and you'll need nose down trim to prevent the plane from rearing up or having to keep pushing the stick all the time to fly level. That's the way planes normally work. In some small, light planes without a lot of speed range, if you don't trim, it isn't that hard to push or pull the stick to stay level. Annoying over a longer time, but doable. But in faster, heavier aircraft, control forces to hold the plane level can build up a lot as speed changes. Stick forces depend on a lot of things, including aircraft centre of gravity, and I have no idea what a race modified P-51 is like. But if you're going fast, 400+ mph, you might have a lot of forward trim input to fly level. Lose that trim tab and the aircraft may pitch up at high G...

I was maybe at 3200' as I said, by the time the reserve was open. A telephoto lens and lots of pixels! I don't think anything partially inverted, in the sense of any of the skirt blowing past lines and other parts of the skirt. Nevertheless, parts of the skirt billowed outward before other parts, as the 'slug' of air inside expanded -- inflation certainly isn't a symmetrical process 360 degrees around. Good thing one doesn't notice all that happening when experiencing it live!

Yeah, that's what I meant. He took a P-51 vertically into the tarmac...

If it really was Jimmy Leeward as some say, he was one of the best known pilots. News organizations can overdo it in trying to not report anything until verified. One news report stated that the condition of the pilot is unknown. Technically perhaps true, but what d'ya think...

French and English like to blame things on each other. English overcoats vs. French letters -- all the same thing. And there's the English vice (caning usually, sometimes homosexuality) vs. the French vice (fellatio according to some sources). Then there's the French disease (syphilis). Some terms were used for different things at different times by different people. Other societies get treated with suspicion. Apocryphal or not, "Wogs begin at Calais!" It is interesting to find out about armies of old, how many of their casualties came from battle, from disease, and from STD's. The battle casualties aren't always the largest proportion though out much of history.

It's all in the interpretation -- the FAA language could certainly be the basis of some good instruction -- as you perhaps prefer. But when it talks about 'procedures to be used', it doesn't say that it has to be a description of the procedures the instructor would be using. It can just as well be the procedures for the passenger: "Hey you - shuffle with me to the door, put your hands on the harness, hips out, legs back, I'll tell you what to do under canopy, leave everything else to me." Voila, there's the briefing on procedures to be used throughout the entire dive. Slinging meat...