pchapman

Like Billvon seems to be thinking, that quoted paragraph is hard to interpret. [edit: That's the one in jenn83's post.] It mentions being "airborne", when the manual really means to talk about the Airborne mode. A jumper might well not associate "airborne" with driving to another DZ Saturday night to jump there Sunday. The Vigil doesn't show that it is in Airborne mode, right? Various LED's flash when it hits the 150 ft level and goes into that mode, but that's all I see in the manual. Another confusing item is where it says on p 8 that it will calibrate itself to the current ground elevation pressure. They mention it in a section about turning it on, but aren't clear that this refers only to when turning it on, on the ground -- not what happens if you've moved to a DZ at another elevation with the AAD still on. On other pages, things are more clear. On p22 it says You must only switch the Vigil® ON only once you arrive at the drop zone to get the correct GROUND ZERO REFERENCE. (This statement was worded in a weaker way and not as prominent in the old Vigil 1 manual.) Another useful statement, on p12, is The Vigil® must imperatively be switched ON at ground level of your take-off zone (This becomes the “GROUND ZERO” reference altitude). (That has also been in the Vigil II manual a while, and in a weaker and slightly less clear form in an old 2007 Vigil 1 manual.) Parts of these statements are also seen just after the index in the manual (p4). Every time I look at the manual, I seem to find more. There's something on p21 as well about the Vigil staying on if it doesn't see the original ground zero reference, requiring being turned off and on to get a new reference. I was going to be pretty critical about the manual based on that one quoted section. That part certainly is poorly written, but there are other parts that try to make it clear what a jumper has to do if going to another DZ. It sure isn't a CYPRES, which has a different 14 hour turnoff logic. In any case, boot one's AAD at the start of a jump day at the DZ.

Well I'll actually defend petejones45 in this thread, even if IN GENERAL his posts are often pretty stupid, and he should learn when to stay quiet. His one liner about whether the OP had been taught packing properly might be a little harsh, but nothing out of the ordinary for DZ.com, something that many people might have posted. It is still good that the original poster asked about step throughs to learn more, but inevitably someone would ask about his training.

Instant Garden Gnome.

The point piisfish is making is that some US manuals only stated 120, as that was what was available domestically and they never thought about any other limits. So if it said 120 and there were no manual update, one might be stuck with 120, even if most would assume 180 now applies. Many manuals had something like "The FAA requires 120 days" -- sometimes not even listing any other recommendation at all. Technically they have no limit of their own, but only says what the FAA says. So there would be no international limit. But most manuals will have been updated. I notice that National only allows 8 months maximum in their newer manuals. Strong states 180 days, in their latest manual. (Their own rule, not the FAA's). But not all of their manuals have been updated. So technically if doing a Strong seatpack, 120 is the limit. So you'd want to call for permission if being finicky. Butler in a new manual allows up to 1 year (if local regulations allow). It was interesting to look this stuff up.

Whatever decisions are made on who pays for what in which jurisdiction, it still comes down to the issue of being informed before one receives a service, what kind of bill one might be facing. The price tag should be on the item so to speak. No sudden surprise $10,000 bills in the mail. (Obviously there are limitations in medical emergencies etc but the principle still stands.)

Nice vid with the GoPro on your foot. I mean, what else do you do with your feet anyway? Just a big GoPro mount. It doesn't give the best view in freefall but was nice for landing. It was clearly windy, just from seeing the canopy breathe before landing. Great view as you instantly start getting dragged backwards on landing until you can reel in your big canopy. Sporty.

Just to clarify, were those maneuvers on the helicopter? What type? Some of those are very advanced helicopter aerobatics, outside normal certification limits. I'm wondering if those maneuvers are the precise ones described or not. (E.g., in proper aerobatics language a barrel roll includes a full 360 degree rotation about the roll axis, etc) This doesn't change the issue you brought up about maneuvering helicopters and electronic sensors. This was with doors open, not a closed cabin, right? I'm not familiar with what Invasion others might be describing. Would that be the Eloy event? And as for the other person reporting an AAD fire in a helicopter, it would be great if someone could be found who had the details!

From this thread, it looks like simple blocks, not extending past the width of the risers, on the BACK of the risers, is enough. Interesting, as I had not yet gone as far as building them on the back of the riser. Having them on the front is more visible but certainly snags the grommets well. With the risers tensioned, and the slider grommets at an angle, it doesn't take much for them to catch and hold. That may not have been apparent as much in the early days when people started building these things -- really wide tabs or complex folding ones just aren't necessary for normal situations.

But what if I want to know where to stow the crown lines on a ParaCommander, if using a bag not a sleeve? Or when I should file the centering tip off the male Capewell lug? That's when I need the old timers.

Hey Chris. Skydiving first. At the time, paragliding as a sport had barely started even in Europe. Here in flat Ontario it's easy to find a DZ, but over the years one has had to be more dedicated to find some little PG school. Why paraglide? I like learning to fly different aerial vehicles. Already had my private pilot's licence, already had flown aerobatics, so skydiving and paragliding came next. A few years later one local hang gliding school started offering paragliding so I took a few lessons shortly before a trip to Europe where I took a week's formal course. The few lessons and a signed note from my local instructor (even with no rating) were valuable, because that way they let me sign up for the Intermediate course in Austria instead of the Basic one. It would have sucked to have travelled that far and then only used the bottom 100 ft of THE ALPS, on the bunny slope so to speak. By the end of the week, even a sled ride flight from our highest launch was a 4 km flight into the valley.

I was wondering myself. Barnstormers has some, but no separate category, so one ends up searching through powered parachutes when looking for a parachute. The International Aerobatic Club doesn't have any online ads, but members on the email list (not run by the IAC) very occasionally post something. One can view the archives month by month at http://aerobaticsweb.org/pipermail/acro/ The Soaring Society of America (SSA) has their classifieds online but there aren't many. (No parachutes there at the moment for example) http://www.ssa.org/magazine/classifieds.asp?classification=0,1 There's always eBay. But what category is best? Not sure. A generic 'parachute' search even in Outdoor Sports comes up with too many ads for 'parachute cord' etc. And there you get things like a faded Security 150 rig being sold for $1000 - not the best deal. Any other ideas?

I did that one year. OK, I was new to CRW and made a lousy dock ... but got two saves out of it!

I don't think I packed more this year than usual, but it was busy for saves, adding 9 to my saves list. Oldest reserve was a Paraflite Swift.

I can tell a Mitchell from a Fauvel from a Backstrom from a Horton... but that flying wing of yours is a mystery to me.

You really do try hard to come up with idiotic posts. That combination of self-confidence and cluelessness is hard to beat. Even from the perspective of someone wanting to cut a newbie some slack, you come up with new howlers. If you really want to be the class clown, then please just put a few smilies at the end of every post.

Since you are newer to the sport: Don't worry about that. Don't take the weights listed as gospel. Early PD numbers on zero p main canopies were very conservative and low. Zero p was new to the sport, but even within a few years, "everyone" was exceeding the numbers. So some canopies have realistic numbers on them, and some have cover-the-company's-ass conservative numbers on them.

Yeah! Having the reserve out can help a lot with even some minor sewing and repair jobs. Or there's the rig that's being aired out because it is a bit damp from the pond. Or just adjusting the closing loop. In some countries, only the original rigger is supposed to do an 'open & reclose' without a full pack job. Hell, I've had to do a couple repacks for people within days of the previous repack, just because someone snagged the handle at home.

Just my opinion: Flare at the same height. That's the simple version, for most situations, with some caveats and exceptions. That's for low vs. higher winds, but one exception below if for really high winds. One needs the canopy to plane out to nearly level flight before touchdown, and that takes a certain amount of vertical distance, whether or not you have a lot of forward ground speed. That's why normally you still flare at the same height. I think people don't always realize that. And the situation is often taught poorly. Someone might say, "When to flare? Flare later." Well, what does that mean? Sure, it may be correct that one flares later relative to the moment of touchdown, because you aren't going to have much time flying planed out. But you don't want to "flare later" in terms of height. Very low wing loadings: For a very lightly loaded canopy, the plane out isn't as much a factor, but even on student canopies one often has the canopy swing back before touch down, effectively planing out for a moment. With low descent rates and a desire not to get blown back in a strong wind, it may be reasonable to flare a little lower. Flaring lower OK if flaring harder: This is an exception to flaring at the same height. One could flare a bit lower if one flares harder, that is, bringing one's hands down faster, as long as there's still enough time for the canopy to physically swing and plane out. This would apply if flying a lightly loaded canopy, and is wary of being blown backwards if one slows the canopy too much. Indeed if the winds are strong enough that one is descending vertically, this makes sense even on a highly loaded canopy. So in such a situation, "flare lower" is still the wrong instruction on its own, but can be correct when used as part of a technique that involves a more sudden flare when you do start. After planing out, in high winds you won't need to hold the flare as long or bring your hands down as much to get to a zero forward speed or something comfortably close. So that part is different than in low winds. With high wind, you'll have less time in the planed out state before being out of forward speed, so you have less time to get to the desired altitude (feet just above the ground or whatever). On the other hand, if you are not yet accurate, are conservative, and end up high, it is less of a problem. One would rather be flared out 2' above the ground at 0 mph, than at 10 mph on a no wind day. As for judging height for flaring, that's one of the tough things in skydiving for novices. I'll leave others to answer that in detail. You get a feel for it, just knowing that the time & distance is right for completing a flare that works.

They SAY it is needed, but they haven't showed us whether or not it IS needed. The stated reason is suspect, and one might also suspect unstated reasons. But you have a point about reducing the number of repacks that happen without a required replacement. Some may just ignore the new rules; Argus will have failed to fix that and just annoy conscientious jumpers & riggers. But the new rule will catch the 'casual mistakes'. I.e., where the rigger asks the jumper, "You need a new battery or anything?" and the jumper says, "No, it's good." and the rigger (sloppily) relies on his word. Now, anytime you see an Argus, stick a new battery in it...

That helps clarify things. For some of us, if you say, "basically the same canopy" means that it IS the same canopy design, maybe with a different trim, different sewing pattern, a tweak here or there, a different label on the end cell, but 90% the exact same fabric shapes down to the last millimeter of laser cut precision. So I think some of us took it as you saying that you had proof that PD had directly copied the other canopy. (And not just studied or taken inspiration from the other canopy.) That would be big news. That's why your statement was getting such close attention. Basically.

In most conditions, normal canopies don't collapse, and neither do airlocked canopies. In really extreme conditions, both will collapse. Airlocked canopies can be better in between. But that's such a narrow range of situations, that skydivers haven't in the end found it worthwhile to buy them. Or to buy them from the particular companies who held or licensed the patent. So if weather conditions were too nasty to jump in, they were too nasty for everyone. Did airlocks save a few people from a major injury? They may well have, but I guess it was just too hard to tell to create much demand. Keeping the canopy from breathing as much in normal turbulence will improve efficiency, but again it wasn't enough to make people stick with them. When it comes to collapses, the big thing is angle of attack. If the angle of attack gets too low, too negative, there's too much pressure on the top of the nose compared to that inflating it from inside, and the nose will fold down. Airlocks will slow air from getting out, but if the angle of attack is wrong for a normal canopy, it is wrong for an airlocked canopy too, and the nose will fold. So airlocks don't magically stop collapses as some tended to think, but they should slow them down and so reduce the severity of brief collapses. If a wingtip folds and stays more pressurized as with airlocks, that creates a worse problem, as you now have a more solid draggy surface pulling you into a spiral dive. So if it wasn't a small collapse that was lessened by airlocks (=good), but it went so far as a big collapse, then airlocks can make things worse. On heading openings might tend to suffer a little from airlocks. Maybe some designs were fine, but the couple local guys with Vengeance's are the ones who are seen to snap into 360 degree spirals right on opening... [Edit: ...and someone asks, "Did that guy pop a toggle?" "No, don't worry, it's just a Vengeance."]

Maybe those easy-to-use European doors with horizontal handles that tilt, unlike than the common US & Canadian style of a rotating knob...

Your choice, but since you can't use leg muscles to absorb bad landings, I'd say get somebody else of at least similar weight to jump it in low winds first and watch the landings. I'd want to be sure that it flares OK .

When cocked, the kill line should allow just a little slack so that the limiter tapes down the center of the pilot chute take the load instead. In the d-bag the base of the kill line should be a little distance from hitting the grommet in the top of the bag. A couple inches distance is fine. When the pilot chute is deflated, the handle of the pilot chute shouldn't be slamming into the base of the pilot chute. That means the kill line is getting too short. That may happen over time with a spectra kill line, but shouldn't happen if it is vectran. But it's really a bit early for that sort of stuff with your 3 jumps. You may get some flak for trying to learn too much too soon. Still, nothing wrong with trying to "read ahead" even if you don't understand it all. As long as when you actually go out to skydive, you pay attention to what is needed in the next few dives and don't get distracted by all the long-run stuff. That's my 2 cents for the evening.

Hey, when you are flying with a low wing loading, you just can't get much harness turn action going. So toggle all you want! Merry Christmas; nice to hear you escaped to a DZ that's not covered in snow!