pchapman

NOOOOOOOO !!!! Please everyone, don't throw things away, at least not before asking around among those that are into old gear. Those in History & Trivia for a while should know there are those here who are into jumping old things. Sometimes we'll buy something for a modest fee, sometimes we get donations from people who want to see something jumped again... or at least safely stored in someone else's closet instead of taking up space. Pass it on! I so would like to jump a silk canopy! Even if I have to chop it and not land it. Hell, even just to have one to do a few pull tests on, see what the strength is. The same applies to any 40+ year old 24 ft flat twill. Ok, I'll admit, some old Racer just isn't in the age range of things that are so interesting. That's more just old, not antique. Things like Pap's and PC's are still in some demand, as are odd things like dual keel Paradactyls (the single keels not so much.) (Plug: I'm looking for one or two decent fore and aft harness containers at the moment, to hold a PC, something like a Mini System or extended flap military rig.) As for old T-shirts, there was once a big thread on that, so if anyone takes photos of their old shirts, that's the place to upload them. A couple times in the last year I tracked down people with interesting old gear... but the guys, retired from the sport, left it in the house when the ex-wife got the house. The gear either got tossed or is inaccessible. So what do I have that's interesting but unused? There's a nicely padded Advance Air (Handbury) rig, in SOS configuration. And there's the ParaSled, which I haven't jumped yet because I haven't built a bag big enough to hold the thing.

This thread seems fairly flexible. In some cases it is about the lousiest rig one would jump, in other cases it is the lousiest one has jumped. So here goes, for a long post… There are plenty of things I might jump occasionally, with solo exits, and without a crowd in freefall. So then one can put up with terrible riser or pin protection, or canopies with crappy landings. To define what one would jump, it can be easier to describe what one WOULDN'T jump. -- While I still have a couple Phantom 24's, I'd prefer not to jump a rig with a Phantom 22 reserve (max weight recommended 155 lbs), or a 20 foot K-XX, both of which are in the Low Speed category. Just getting too light weight especially when 20+ years old. A good old solidly built Strong LoPo? No problem. -- If I'm jumping a round reserve, I really like having one with a diaper. A diaper is too much of an improvement for me to ignore. -- I do not want to jump a ParaCommander if the rig still has 2 shot Capewells and a no pilot chute reserve. With a high performance round like a PC that can really spin up, I want to be able to chop it, and not try have to try to toss in the direction of the spin and avoid the reserve barber poling. A friend put a couple jumps on his PC when he still had 2 shots about 2 years back; so I and another friend with a Capewell conversion device went and changed his Capewells to 1 1/2 shots. -- Some things one may have a gut aversion to, maybe because one isn't familiar with them, whether or not they actually are OK. I'm not, for example, all that interested in jumping a Pioneer Para Twin rig, with its disconnectable reserve. Just a bit creepy. Even though Rocket Jet releases, with a safety pin too, should hold perfectly well. They're just not suited for main canopy cutaways under load. As for crappy stuff I have jumped: -- A National Renegade (220) main. Their line of mains wasn't well known; perhaps they sucked. Which doesn't bode well for their even less-known line of ram air reserves. The mains did have a bulletin out about changing the brake lines to improve the flare. Although I was a novice at the time, the 220 square feet of the Renegade gave me a lousy landing in low wind despite being only 140 lbs at the time. -- Single keel Paradactyl -- Truly a scary canopy, that I get less enthusiastic about as time goes by. At least on mine, it has a high stall point, susceptibility to turbulence, and a stall that can be unrecoverable for 10 seconds. So if something goes wrong under 500', it could kill you. While that all matches what I've heard about others of the breed, it might not help that I've since found that the lines on the one I jumped, were assembled a little bit wrong on the risers well before I got it. Dual keels are so much nicer. -- When mixing and matching old gear for CRW, I did make a couple jumps on a rig with a leg throwout, but the canopy & accessories came from another rig, so there was no pile velcro on the bridle. So for the short term I just stuck bits of pile velcro across and around the bridle, along the long stretch of hook velcro, to keep the bridle in place. -- There's an old accuracy rig at the DZ that the DZO uses as a spare or lends out. It is an ancient Racer (c. 1980?), and between using parapack and being sized for a big Parafoil, it is ugly. Risers are completely exposed, with just a couple tabs of webbing and velcro to cross the risers and hold them in place. That's OK for the era, and in fact they are kind of protected the way the Racer routes them around from the shoulders to the backpad of the rig, hiding them somewhat from the outside world. The rig was pretty much new-old-stock, unusued for a couple decades, and then the DZO had me assemble it. I replaced or removed over a dozen #0 grommets in the thing, because the quality of them was so bad. Someone sure accepted imperfections in the dies in those days, leading to bascially every grommets being nicked. (The nicks weren't right down in the center of the bore, so they wouldn't start cutting closing loops right away, but still not good.) It also had those 4 extra grommets on the side flaps (plus backpad), which were used for temporarily tying the rig tighter. The grommets are covered by the pilot chute cap in service. Unnecessary in any case, and also the source of horror stories I've heard from long ago, where the rig would have totalled because someone closed it with the "temporary" cords still in place. I was handed a decent if old square reserve to put on it. But the rig was built with SHORT reserve risers, as sometimes used in the round reserve days. I must have rebuilt the steering line guide rings, for if there were any already there, then they were for unstressed steering lines as on some rounds, not built to take opening loads like on squares. If one had to use the reserve, the steering toggles (and guide rings) would be right beside one's head. Really ugly but it will function.

I'm fascinated by the issues of risk too, and back in unrelated university studies, I'd also look up writings related to risk -- Zuckermann, Lyng, Laurendeau (skydiver!), Trimpopp, etc. (just going by memory on the names) But the quick 10 minute questionnaires, they're just too simple to get at the kind of detail needed these days to really expand on what is known about risk taking. I'm sure it'll be fun to review the results, and one can get some good statistics practice analyzing the results. But this isn't Psych 101, or even an undergrad thesis with a strict deadline. At the postgrad level, isn't there something more in depth that can be done?? And having the name Bandura... is that a good sign or just hard to live up to... what does it do for one's self-efficacy? [Psych in-joke there.] Regarding what John Rich pointed out, a big factor in what risks people take is the reward they see in the behaviour. And then there are issues of real vs. perceived risks, locus of control, controllability of risk, and so on. (For other readers of the thread, remember that questions like "I do dangerous maneuvers" isn't a Yes/No question, but one of those where the reply is about the level to which it is true.)

While that's a common answer, I wonder how common it is to actually do. Where do you put it? Sit on it in a back pocket? Uncomfortably in the way and covered by a leg strap in a front pocket? No space for it in some small jump ticket / earplug pocket on the arm or inside the chest of a jump suit? Afraid to take one's fancy smart phone along and crack the screen? Maybe some people have solutions but it just doesn't seem like a simple thing for everyone to do. Yes it can work out, if say you have a large exterior jumpsuit pocket with a really secure closure. Or if you happen to wear cargo pants with big leg pockets under the jumpsuit, as I did a couple weeks ago when carrying a Blackberry.

That's great that someone compared both ways, for their own canopy in certain conditions. But I'd still want to see enough of the riser vs. brakes glide polars for a bunch of canopies, shift the curves for different wind conditions, draw glide slope lines, and analyze, before I believe that one method is conclusively better than the other.

Why is lack of a POST inspection a problem, as long as the inspection is DURING? One could easily have maintenance on an aircraft where major disassembly is required. A part gets inspected, everything gets put back together, and it becomes very expensive to rip everything apart again to inspect a 2nd time. Inspection ports & borescopes don't allow access to everything. E.g., What are the rules for A&P aircraft mechanic trainees reassembling an engine? Do they work under supervision or do they assemble & disassemble some old engine in the corner of the shop repeatedly? I can't expect you to know what goes on in the hearts & minds of the FAA, but it seems like a lame excuse on their part. Everyone knows parachute packing has to be supervised at a number of stages because obviously you can't check it non-destructively when it's in the container. (I'm in Canada we don't have this issue; trainee riggers are allowed to pack under supervision for use.) It sounds like it is only relatively recently that the word has been getting out that technically in FAA-land, the pack jobs under supervision have to be dummy packs. So I wonder what proportion of new FAA certified riggers have been doing dummy packs vs. placed-in-service packs? Have they been doing dummy packs only recently? Is it a phenomenon that has only become common in the era of big, formal, expensive rigger courses? (Mind you, for such courses, one pretty much has to do dummy packs -- if you have 6 riggers trying to do all their pack jobs in 2 weeks or what have you, that's a lot of rigs to pack.)

Yeah, the 100 fpm climb rate (at gross weight) is the standard performance definition of service ceiling. Riggerrob is right about how some ceilings are a certification limit instead, like the common 25k one. I'd bet the limit Rhys is talking about is not a certification limit... but so far those of us here don't know for sure...

There's a lot more to hash out here. Some answers have suggested one may be trying to fly oneself through the opening (ie, not be entirely passive), but not be trying to fly the canopy through the opening. And one has to be very careful with terminology. If told to "stay even in the harness" that could mean trying to keep even pressure on both leg straps. But what if the right side pulls up harder, and the canopy turns off towards the left? What does "stay even" mean? Push down on the right side? Or just keep the pressure balanced, in effect leaning to the left? I don't have a perfect answer to provide either. I sort of thought: If the canopy is trying to twist off to one side, one would rather try to let oneself go with it. Trying to physically twist the other way isn't going to help as one has little power to twist the lines, so all one might to is get closer to the lines getting half a twist -- where they touch each other and all resistance to further twisting is lost, and the jumper tends to spin his body around upon completion of the opening. But while trying to oppose any twisting isn't good, one can try to oppose different pressures on the left and right leg straps, that may indicate the canopy is trying to turn. There one can shift weight onto whatever side is trying to pull up more, to try to keep the risers even. Still, one wants to "go with the canopy" -- if it starts to dart off to the left, you want to be turning left too, to follow the canopy, and not let it get twisted relative to you. That should provide ideas for further refinement or revision.

They "don't scale" in that not everything scales equally when changing scale. If someone goes from their present canopy to one that is 20% smaller, things don't scale perfectly because the lines aren't 20% narrower, and the person won't have 20% less drag. Or, if they switched to a jumper of 20% less weight, they still wouldn't have 20% less drag, as the weight changes faster than the drag (in proportion to the cube of the dimensions rather than the square of the dimensions). All that will change the proportion of drag of the canopy vs. lines vs. jumper, which are significant forces being applied in different locations, so that'll affect the way the canopy is pitched in flight and the glide angle. Aircraft companies using models need to take scale effects into account too -- halving the linear size of a model makes the weight one eighth, and the wing area one quarter. So the aerodynamic effects vs. the inertial effects are out of whack with each other. Not to mention changing aerodynamics from Reynolds number effects that are significant between a model and a full scale aircraft. So aircraft companies can use models; they just have to be very very careful about what they are measuring and how the data is interpreted & modified to represent their full sized aircraft.

Great stuff, thanks for the work put into that. If you kept the original data categorized and ever had the time to go another step, I personally would like to see the same with: - suicides left out since they don't represent accidental deaths - the unknown jump number category moved off to the side with a separate category, so it doesn't visually look like it is part of the "under 250" region - something similar could be done with "1000+" type results, although it may take a more sophisticated graphics program - tandem passengers who are students - a bit debatable what to do there, but OK as is, since it is still a risk they are exposed to whether or not they have much control - smaller categories at the lower numbers would be interesting to see -- It is perhaps more important to know whether someone had 50, 100, or 200 jumps, than whether they had 2000 or 4000 There's never one perfect way to display or categorize data, however. Different uses require different organization. Thanks.

I long wanted to find a copy of the Command the Commander article that Daryl Henry wrote for Parachutist magazine in 1965. (He's a Canadian accuracy champion who has lived in the US for many years.) It seems to have been talked about for years, so is worth preserving. It's about how to fly the ParaCommander well. At my request, Daryl's old teammate Ernie Mueller (from the '66 worlds I think) got Daryl to make scans of the article and pass them on for turning into a PDF and uploading, which I did at: https://sites.google.com/site/canopyflight/Home/60s-accuracy There's another article of his there too, Advanced Precision, which appeared in 1964. That was more about flying the 7TU, as the ParaCommander had only just appeared. Daryl says he tried to call the article "An Advance to Precision", but the editors changed it on him. The Command the Commander article also has a few nice old advertisements on the pages, for Para-Gear, Security, Midwest Parachute Sales, and the PCA.

Summary: I also think that the Skyhook isn't going to magically make the risers get loaded perfectly evenly. Yet I think it may do a pretty decent job at avoiding excessively asymmetric deployments, especially compared to some alternatives other than taking a good long delay to get stable after a chop. Details: As a spinning mal is chopped, the canopy will do one thing, while the jumper will continue on tangentially to the spiral he was in (as Riggerpaul wrote), and the jumper will be rotating with whatever rotational momentum he's already got during the spiral. There won't necessarily be a perfect line of symmetry along the jumper's body axis, risers, lines, d-bag, bridle, and chopped main. HOWEVER, because the Skyhook acts in such a short distance, there won't be a lot of time or distance for a jumper to get into a bad body position relative to his reserve. That's especially true compared to taking a short delay delay before reserve activation (without time to get stable), or perhaps to some degree relative to using an RSL. (And maybe you are in that spinning mal in the first place with main risers completely uneven. How is Skyhook gonna fix that when you chop?) One data point is the Skyhook chop (after a simulated spinning mal) seen in UPT's video called "2005_Skyhook_History.mov". Stills from the video are combined in my attachment. On the video, "in general" the reserve activation is "fairly" inline with the jumpers body initially, and the risers appear fairly evenly loaded. Yet when looking closely, one can see that the jumper has some pitching, yawing, and rolling all going on during the whole reserve activation sequence, changing angles of the body relative to the lines, shoulders not always squared off relative to the risers.

Your overall message about paying attention to warning signs makes sense. You had the luxury of being at a very large DZ where a new pilot chute was available within minutes instead of being something to mail order. It would still be interesting to know more about the PC, since it looks decent and should last longer than 300 jumps. More photos when untangled and cocked? Or a check of kill line length when cocked, e.g., in relation to the outer edge of the PC or the centerline support tapes? Pilot chute problems can sometimes be a bit subtle.

It's hard to tell what the situation is without good data on "base rates". If a certain percentage of fatal accidents happen to jumpers with a B license, we need to know what percentage of active jumpers have a B licence. Then there's the issue of whether to judge on safety per jump or per time period. E.g., if one goes from doing 100 jumps per year to doing 400 per year, does one have to be four times safer per jump, to be considered an equally safe skydiver now, or not?

Here are a couple shots of a cross braced canopy, white with red x-braces. (That's me in mukluks, swooping in winter...) Looks nice enough in my biased opinion, not too muddied or pinkish, but I see that opinions could vary considerably! What do you think, EVOL?

That idea of 'taking it easy' on a canopy the first time has been around. We don't really give our reserve canopies that choice, do we?

To add to this: Now that only says the rigger must UNDERSTAND the instructions, not follow them.

I can't say exactly what's right for you. But a little downsizing would be fine. If you ended up buying a 230 (after using the 260 at your dz), that would still be a light wingloading of (185+30max)/230 = .93. It's still going to be pretty floaty compared to most things being jumped. And it may even be more relaxing on days where the winds are up, as you won't spend as much time having to plan your descent to avoid getting drifted away. More canopy speed equals more freedom to fly where ever you want. I don't personally mind jumping huge canopies in high wind, but it takes a lot more planning than when I'm under something small. While I don't want to push downsizing, it is common to want a little more speed after making more jumps, even if initially someone figured they would never want to go smaller. And as stated, landings can actually get better as one gets a little speed (and gets a canopy better than some older student canopies), enabling more of a swing forward to plane out to a landing.

That reminds me of a similar throttle / stick / nozzle mixup on the aircraft that led to the Harrier. As the story goes:

Referring to my bunched up sleeve photo: It's not all about you Beatnik. Sorry Howard for helping derail your thread. My puke Para Commander just attracts too much attention.

I don't know about POD's, so would people use a long retainer line with them, just as some people preferred them with sleeves? I'll offer another alternative for the photo, as a possibility, even if it is more likely not correct: A sleeve can bunch up on opening and look like a bag or POD at a distance (or at low resolution). Attached is a photo showing this. I guess this would tend to happen around the junction of the bridle proper, and the sleeve retainer line. The 2nd photo just shows the sleeve dangling, on the same canopy on another jump - there the sleeve inverted completely, over the bridle to the pilot chute.

Thanks, I could have been more precise. Step away from the step -- with some combination of backwards and sideways depending on circumstances.

Ouch, that's brutal. To summarize in less space, if I've got it right: After 1 tandem, initial 4 AFF dives from a C-182, all with 2 instructors on the harness. Then dives from turbine aircraft or a dive out exit. Then on AFF level 7, (jump #12) it was the first poised exit from the 182 step without a harness hold. No step back, face hit step. Stepping back has always been a crucial part of a C-182 poised exit. One has to teach students to avoid overly aggressive, unbalanced exits, but the other extreme needs to be addressed too. I can't comment on what the original instructional technique might have been, but it is a good reminder that proper exit technique still needs to be taught and practiced, even if it is the case that early in AFF, linked exits may mask some problems. I guess nobody earlier picked up on any tendency for you to not step back enough. It seems more common for a "weak" exit to involve 'leaving a foot on the step' and thus becoming completely dearched on exit, which is easy for instructors to see, while you were perhaps moving into an arch at least somewhat better (even if there was some kicking after exit.)

Bigun, what are your opinions on wingloading for big students? The issue essentially came up when discussing crossing out items on the equipment list for TSO reasons, vs. other reasons. Germain's chart only goes to 265 lbs, where a 1.15 loading is the max. allowed for a first timer. IF that is reasonable, then even a 260 canopy is acceptable for a 300 lb exit weight AFF student. (And as reference, we are talking about 300 lbs exit weight -- that was part of the initial discussion between Bigun and TK.) You're right that for crossing canopies off the list, one needs to know the reasons given. E.g., the Pilot 210 may be certified to 300+, but an AFF student at 1.4 wing loading doesn't look right. Or the Smart 250 was crossed off the list, yet it is certified to 300, even if recommended weight is lower. The PD-281 is similar, but then you get into the issue of their density altitude rules (part of the TSO or not?).

So we have a lot of theories but little real data -- we really need court documents etc and not short media articles. We've seen it argued that he might have "collected" no taxes and passed everything on to the employees, or he might have collected all the taxes and not passed them on to the government. Another theory is one in between: He collected some taxes etc (so employees would see deductions on their paychecks and think all is OK), but wasn't collecting enough, and passed that too small amount to the gov't. All the rules on taxes & deductions at federal and state level can't be simple, and maybe even misinterpreted, so one could envision a company making a mistake. I have no idea which theory is right, whether the errors were inadvertent or deliberate, but I think that's another possibility to consider.