pchapman

FWIW, MJO's quote is from TSO C23d, which mainly references all the drop test etc rules from AS815B, but does have some text on what info must be supplied to the FAA and the user. As for furnishing maintenance information to the user, has any original owner of a TSO C23d rig rig received a letter from the manufacturer saying that an Argus may not be used? Or is any owner on a mandatory email list for updates? If not, it is possible that someone could try to argue that the information "furnished to the user" is the original manual only, and thus that manual applies, even if things later added to the company web site might be useful suggestions.

No, 300k or so is the limit, really. Just recently I posted some pics as attachments, anything over about 300 was rejected, and one of 287 was OK. So I think the 100 is an error left over in the text they display if something is rejected, from when the limits were lower. Confusing!

Someone reported that when he tried to upload too large a file, the site reported back to him that the maximum file size is 100KB. But I know I've been OK wehn uploading files under about 300KB. So some part of the code still lists one of the older very restrictive file sizes. Confusing to people. (Why not have it say next to "Upload attachment" what the current limit is?)

I think the limit is higher now? Not sure what, but more like 300k?? Gotta be listed somewhere.

To all: There are a few other interesting Argus AAD related documents on the PIA site too, in http://www.pia.com/TechnicalArgusDocuments/AviacomTechData/AviacomTechnicalData.htm. So one can see tech drawings both for the Argus cutter housing (in the previous URL list) and the cutter blade. For example, while the Cypres cutter blade is 5 mm dia (my micrometer measurement), the Argus cutter blade is about 6 mm. The barrel specs are 6.00-6.02mm, and the blade specs are 5.98-5.99 mm. That gives a maximum of 1.5 thou (in inches) clearance. And both the Cypres and Argus use a double O-ring on their cutter blade unit to seal against gas blow by during firing. To MakeItHappen: It seems as if Vigil does things differently with that 'holdback' mechanism with the dot stamps. I don't see anything like that on the Argus technical drawings. Nor do I see it in my cut open, fired Cypres cutter. The bore inside the cutter housing appears smooth over the area where the cutter blade would go. But I don't know for sure how they do things.

Manufacturers could also recognize that they sell both to the US and the rest of the world. So they could have said that due to the US legal situation, and even more importantly, that due to the FAA requirements that an AAD installation not affect reserve operation, therefore they felt they must ban the Argus in their rigs. But then the companies could also have said that everyone outside the US, can make their own mind up. I really think that FAA rule spooked the companies, a rule which is much harder to claim applies in the case of premature AAD firings -- as in most other AAD issues over the years. It's that rule that made the Argus problem seem so much worse for rig manufacturers than other AAD's problems over the years. Yet that FAA rule has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the world.

from http://www.swissskydive.org/cms/upload/Material/Manufacturers_guidelines_2010.pdf Interesting! But I wonder about the accuracy of those recommendations. (Are they mandatory in Switzerland?) After all, it shows a lot of US reserves (& rigs) as requiring repacks every 120 days. Which it might say in an old manual, or of a company that no longer exists. But in 100% of the cases, when the FAA went to a 180 day repack cycle, all the companies followed. And even the FAA wouldn't prohibit someone from repacking a discontinued company's reserve at a 180 day cycle. That document just parrots what's on paper without looking at what is considered legal practice. The only Tempo manual I can find online is a grainy scan of a fax. Hard to tell, but I don't see any 20 year limit in it. Hey, if there are countries selling 20 year old reserves cheap, I'm interested!

So we've already seen 65.127e... (my emphasis) I'd think usually this is taken to mean currently approved procedures, not just ones that had at one time been approved. But one could still try to argue the latter. They say "approved" but don't specify "are approved" vs. "were approved". Thus both could be considered valid. Then also look at the next paragraph: (my emphasis) Again one could take this two ways. The most logical is that it is reinforcing the idea that a rigger must use procedures currently approved. On the other hand, one could argue, if they have to specify "current" instructions in (f), that suggests that in (e), it isn't about currently approved procedures, just ones that have been approved at one time. So read the current instructions to be up to date in knowledge, then pick any that have been approved at one time. This is really rules lawyering though. But it is an attempt to stick it to the manufacturers, who on the one hand disclaim any liability for their product, yet also retain the ability (for US residents in the US) to impose any procedure, or ban the use of any of their products, for any reason, at any time. If a company decided to get out of the civilian market entirely, or declare all of their 10 year old equipment grounded, they could do so.

EXPLENATION: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?do=post_view_flat;post=2101957;page=1;mh=-1;;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC So the video shows a UPT Micron container lock during a ground test Cypres firing. If anyone wants to discuss that issue, lets take that to the original thread about that test, that skydiverek provided! ==================== P.S. - Regarding my sawed off Cypres cutter video-- I have now deleted it. I had my fun with it, and this thread remains to describe what can be done with a cutter, and to show photos of the test and what a cutter looks like inside. It isn't like it takes that much thought to recognize the implications of how a cutter acts, and to come up with a test like mine. So it can't be considered any sort of big secret. One can't fully take back things once they're out on the web. But it is still a reasonable course of action to not share it all around too much, to reduce the chances of anybody outside our community overreacting.

Good point. In the past, it hasn't been any issue to knead a rig with the knees or even stand and walk on it in socks, working the air out of it. An acceptable technique with tight rigs. (I think the actual diameter of the pilot chute cap will mean the pressure would be on the cutter cable not on the cap itself, but I don't have an open Mirage here to check dimensions. As you may be suggesting, the damage might also occur from the act of closing the bottom flap with the cutter attached to it.) Cupped pilot chutes & cutters above them may expose the cables to damage from otherwise normal rigging activity.

Take the control head, put it in a small plastic bag, wrap it tightly with tape, and tuck it away somewhere on your rig, hidden in the backpad or whatever. A look at the AAD control head window will show nothing. AAD? What AAD? All you've got is a hunk of metal in your rig, nothing that you can turn on to act as any sort of automatic activation device. The FAA / DZ / rig companies might always disagree, but it is one avenue one can try. Yeah I know, not many will like that idea, but it is one way of giving the finger to a lot of people while still complying fully with the the safety precautions implied by all the service bulletins -- to not create a hazard that might be caused by faulty cutting of the loop.

Nice post bqmassey. There are people who are voluntarily here on a web site who like to say, "Never listen to anything on this site!" It isn't as if one's local instructor / rigger / experienced jumper is the expert on everything, and has better ideas than the best on this web site, even if you should talk to the local folks in the end before jumping. Sure we have to watch out for the people who get an idea on the web and try to implement it without understanding the context or talking to the local jumpers. But not everyone is like that. While some people are helpful in adding more to what one posts, at other times one gets jumped on because any given piece of advice does not include all other pieces of advice that are possible, nor every possible caveat. So if I wrote on dz.com that I was going to walk across the street, someone would accuse me of being unsafe by not planning to look both ways, and making it dangerous for students because they might think they don't need to look both ways. Jeez, I just said I was going to cross the street, not describe a full course on how a person should cross the street safely.

Note that Argus' (Aviacom's) own web page has had only minimal updates in the last couple weeks, other than their revised service bulletin. Unless I missed something, they don't even have links to the recent reports on the San Marcos incident. I'd also like to know what's happening in the background, and I bet there is a lot of digesting the latest "steel (?) ball" news. But just hearing nothing isn't a conspiracy. Otherwise one would have to conclude that Aviacom is in on the conspiracy against themselves, since they haven't responded either!

Jeez Rhys, don't get your self banned. Just tone it down a little, eh? If you can find that old posts were ever deleted, then we'll look at the evidence. Just don't keep making the accusation every second post. And I don't mean posts being deleted in a day or so after posting -- that happens when a thread goes way off the rails and a mod trims out some of the mess. Sometimes the trimming might go a bit far, when a mod is busy and a post with a mix of off topic and on topic stuff gets caught up in the trimming process. But I don't know how exactly that process works. I don't know if it is worth it, but maybe some mods could add another sticky to the Announcements forum to explain deletion practices as it is one of the more common things for people to get upset about. Regarding the Cypres 2008 Australian incident, I have mentioned a couple times that Airtec told me that they just couldn't find any email about the incident indicating any sort of injury. But it is fair for you to think they are just covering up, in the same was I think they are probably being honest about that. Recalling many hundreds of units is enough of an embarrassment -- whether or not one jumper was sore and not jumping for a couple weeks (or whatever) after a two out landing. It might also help if you stuck to fewer topics per post. Even if you truly feel there are a number of different issues to be investigated, don't bring them all up every time. People are concerned about the whole issue of how AAD's are banned or unbanned, and there's plenty of details we haven't heard about yet. It can go both ways -- suspicion of the PIA members' actions, and suspicion of Argus' actions. (Plus there's that little steel ball, with it's UFO-like fuzzy photos!) The problem for the mods, I suspect, isn't that these things can't be talked about on dropzone, it's the way you talk about them. You don't need to drag everything in together every time like one big conspiracy. People already know your general viewpoint, but so just cool it a little unless there's something new to add to the conversation.

Hey Kallend, The Pacific doesn't look at the whole war in the Pacific, but just snippets here and there mainly of the grunts on the ground in some of the island battles (plus time away from the battle zone), following a few protagonists in different episodes. It's not a narrated docu, but fiction re-created pretty closely to the memoirs of a couple of the protagonists plus other sources. Sledge's book had already become a classic. That kid who became a warrior ended up a mild mannered biology professor (or similar), who couldn't stomach going hunting after the war. There are parts of the series that equal or exceed the violent intensity of the opening scenes of Saving Private Ryan.

Re: being a tandem factory, carnival ride DZ Maybe they will be, but to give them a chance, I can see that a brand new DZ might want to start without fun jumpers to let the DZ to smooth out their operations, make sure they can run well enough to meet demand, get all airport users working smoothly together, etc. Rather than having a bunch of fun jumpers suddenly show up and start moaning about the airlift, organization, facilities, whatever.

On the National Parachute side conversation: Following up what Jerry B heard, I checked with National and they said: Interesting.

So Brian, or anyone with Vigil cutters, let's see how they do on 4 closing loops together, zero tension. That's what I tried today with my last spare Cypres cutter. (Presumably you don't have a spare Vigil lying around so you'd have to figure out a battery and/or capacitor method of firing.) I wanted to test its performance when jammed with Spectra, since it is in some ways tougher to cut than stiff metal. With a lot of force, 4 closing loops could just be pulled through the cutter. They were all old loops removed from rigs in the last year, so there probably was a little silicon still left on them. Here the cutter met it's match. Three of the loops were cut cleanly but the fourth got stuck. Almost all was cut, but one bundle of fibres wasn't, having been pushed to the side of the cutter blade. (Where each Cypres loop can be seen to be braided with multiple 'bundles' of fibres.) One can slide the loop back and forth from either side, so the fibres aren't cut at all. I figure that with the hole packed full, as the cutter hits, some Spectra gets squished and forced out to the side. Just a little bit is able to flatten out enough to squeeze into the minimal space between the cutter projectile and the steel side of the cutter barrel. That's not something that ever happens with a single loop. Of course that's just one test so statistically speaking, who knows how many times all 4 would have been cut, vs. 3 and almost but not quite all of the 4th. When I fired the cutter it wasn't lying quite flat on the table, but with one end of the cutter hole aimed upwards a little. The three cut pieces from that side went flying 3-6 ft, and one is still lost somewhere in a messy corner of the workshop. Who knows, that might actually be more impressive than with a single loop, because there's so much Spectra to forcefully squeeze out of the cutter. I'll post a couple photos after the weekend. I think the Cypres cutter still did pretty well. Everything will have its limits. We'd need at least one test of a Vigil cutter to compare, and preferably a few of each.

Poynters I just says "damage area" from 400 kts on up, and lists opening forces for 100 to 400 kts, topping out at 5400 lbs. Those C-9's always looked pretty solid. Edit: Of course at high speed a jumper decelerates pretty fast, so just a couple sec delay brings the speed down a lot. But if you really gotta pull right away...

Everyone's talking about AAD cutters these days so I cut open an old Cypres cutter with a dremel tool to get some photos to share. Then the cutter was fired at a target. For that, an expired Cypres and 5 year old battery were used, plus a plastic bag and vacuum cleaner to provide the "altitude and freefall" for the Cypres. BAM! Impressive noise and sparks. Without the anvil to keep the explosion internal, in effect I had a little sawed-off Cypres gun. About 20 cal. The cutter projectile measured .197" dia., or 5.00 mm. Video at: http://blip.tv/file/5027093 (The site was a little flaky for me after uploading, so I'll repost elsewhere if there are problems. It may help to click "Select a Format" and pick the mp4 version.) Paper on the table next to the cutter was torn up and blackened from the firing. Two feet downrange, the cutter blade first punched through an inch of insulation foam that I had there just in case of any rebound, making a small entry hole and a bigger exit wound. No spin stabilization on Cypres cutter blades... It then dug its way to the back of a 1/4" of plywood, lying somewhat sideways, and making a dent in the 2 by 4 behind it. Without the 2 by 4 the cutter should easily have gone through the thin plywood. None of this proves anything about cutting spectra loops, but I haven't seen any such tests ever being done and it was quite impressive! Other notes: Just remember in the photos that I was using the dremel tool by hand, so it wasn't one big clean cut across the cutter. I also filed the cut edges a little before handling & taking photos. Rough edges are my work and not Airtecs! The plastic sleeve was taken out in most photos but one can see it hacked up in one shot. The sleeve isn't hard plastic but is fairly rigid (not like soft silicone slider bumpers). The photos show the quite thick cutter housing, with the sleeve (brass?) at the end that provides a smooth entry hole for the closing loop, with space for the plastic insert as well. There's the single horizontal cutter blade, which is sharpish to the touch but has a wide angle and isn't sharp in the same way as a knife blade. The anvil end of the cutter is quite long and solid looking. I made sure to get shots in focus! Wish others could do the same, for there have been some lousy, fuzzy photos taken from too close or too far away in some of recent cutter related investigations. Last year I did a similar "inside the Cypres" post by taking photos of the disassembly of a Cypres 1. (http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=3785900;) In that thread, Erdnarob also mentions intentionally setting off a Cypres cutter on the ground, but he did it with capacitors. I tried the simple way first, with a battery, but it had no effect. Seems like the high flow from a capacitor is needed. I played with one but didn't get the cutter to fire; likely the old capacitor was bad. Next came the bag & vacuum cleaner which worked. Thanks to Andre Lapointe who donated his expired Cypres to me a couple years back. Now we can solve the AAD debates by having cutter duels. Twenty paces, turn and fire!

Hang on - Does the Argus have a plastic sleeve insert inside the cutter or not? It sort of looks like it doesn't? Cypres and Vigil have sleeves. For the Vigil that uses a circular cutter too, the sleeve reduces the chance that an object would nestle inside the cup, somewhat trapped by the loop and at least somewhat out of sight. An object could still jam in the cutter, but it becomes less likely. So one could call it a "flaw" if the Argus does not have the plastic, although it might be better to say it is just a less refined design given that the apparent FOD issue is so extremely rare. One finds carpet fluff and bits of grass in reserve containers, but I haven't ever had to shake out shot from other's packing aids.

I hate to cast suspicions but there are a lot these days with AADs. Perhaps a Dutch jumper can vouch for Mr. Camfferman. I checked the FAA's Civil Aviation registry, and there is an entry for him, but the record is blank. No rating, no address. Not sure what that means. I did do a check of an FAA rigger I know outside the US, and it correctly reported his address, rigger rating level, and seal press symbol. On the other hand, FAA records are known to be very messy with lack of updates. But still, why is there nothing on him? A rigger rating will be on the database even after you are dead. Eg, Mr Lowell Bachman (ParaGear founder) is listed. The whole San Marcos thing could have been just very bad luck for Argus. But it would be nice to have a lot more information than just a fuzzy photo of a small round object.

I've read a lot of incident reports and notice that taxiiing incidents with big planes keep happening. Over the years at busy but tight places like Heathrow, every couple years some aircraft dings another. The pilot is still responsible for safely taxiing the aircraft, where ever ground control clears the pilot to taxi. But the incident reports often show how the pilots were set up to fail, and end up basically blaming the airport, suggesting changes to the way planes are moved or held at different specific areas of the airport, or where taxi and hold markings are painted. Sometimes the pilots could have been more cautious, as CVR records keep showing things like, "You think we'll clear him?" "Probably." "Yeah we should be clear." "Guess so." "Looks like he's on the centerline, we should be good, I think." Still an expensive mistake when one is trying to guess whether the total distance between airplane fuselages is 190' or 200', when that makes all the difference. Pilots just can't determine the exact location of a wingtip so far off to the side and also so far behind them, whether it will clip another plane. Pure parallel taxi markings may be designed far enough apart, but in other cases it is harder to tell -- there are diverging paths, or hold areas where stopping short of a line doesn't guarantee the nose is exactly at the line, etc.

As I posted in an obscure thread elsewhere, it looks like Airtec didn't lie about injuries. This was the 2008 tandem firing under canopy incident in Australia, which (in addition to a ground firing) soon led to the Cypres 2 pressure sensor recall. Airtec recently told me that the info they were sent by a DZ manager after the incident was very brief and said nothing about any injuries, so they had no way of knowing. Sounds to me like the DZ manager was more concerned about getting a replacement unit straight away, than in the injury to his staff member. To be fair, I can't prove Airtec didn't lie to me, but it seems a reasonable explanation.

The .ashx file didn't open up for me except in Visual Studio... which showed its just a pdf. So for anyone with problems viewing it, just rename the extension.