pchapman

So part of their bad reputation is from people seeing the older rigs for many years. (I haven't seen the newer ones.) It wasn't just that the older rigs didn't measure up in bridle/riser/pin protection, but that the company took so long to change things. There were quite a few years where basically everyone in the sport realized people wanted/needed/deserved more freefly friendly gear, for any jumper, but Altico took forever to change things. It made the company look just plain stupid.

I previously posted a serious answer to the thread but if we are starting to compare our cool stall pics, I'll whip mine out too... (They're just video captures. The 7-cell in the pics was an F-111 of 200 ft sq.)

I thought Simple Green was corrosive to aluminum? More of a King Air issue than Singer issue perhaps. Whatever.

Ah, it really is about the toggles. That I'm not sure about. I've seen wood or hard plastic toggles, just drilled across the centre for the brake line to go through to be tied on in some manner. (It can just be big knots to keep the toggle from pulling off the line, with the knots partially recessed and jammed into the toggle, so the toggle doesn't slip up the line either.) I've seen the hard toggle stowed on the riser either by a) elastic fabric in which the toggle ends are stuck, putting the toggle vertical along the riser, or b) 2 little velcroed flaps wrap over it from the sides (like the excess brake line covers found on many reserve risers). But I don't know what the preferred current technique among real accuracy jumpers is. Contact one of the long time Canadian 'Foil jumpers out west like John Davies or Joe Ablitt? I just stuck with normal toggles for my 'Foil. It is a matter of preference. One can reinforce them to hold them more open, if one wants.

Some say track early, some say stay with the formation until breakoff. I think this is a bit like the barrel roll argument. This is the way I personally make sense of those arguments back and forth: Barrel roll? If everyone is disciplined, capable, and doing what they should in a formation dive, doing a barrel roll is wrong. But what if everything does go to hell and people are all over and you can't trust those above you? That's when a barrel roll can be valuable. So: Track off early when you are stuck low? If everyone is doing the right thing, in visual contact, and following the plan, the rule may be that you should stay with the formation until normal breakoff. But, if everything goes to hell, track off early. (not up/down jump run) So "the rules" depend on the situation. For the original poster, if he wasn't capable of spotting the formation and thus maintaining a good position relative to it, he isn't going to be able to do a good track in the short time available when everyone else tracks. He's better to get well out of the way, early. Just my opinion.

No. But it is an interesting issue. Would you rather take a head down, on your side reserve opening at 1100' or a stable reserve opening at 750'? Maybe the first option is better but I'm not sure it is absolutely clear cut. (In the original example of the goof who waited for his AAD to fire, I was thinking of a guy who was already down really low, not one who still had say 6 seconds until AAD firing.) And experienced jumpers often do sacrifice altitude for stability! If someone chops at 2000' and tumbles away, some might pull right away, others might get stable before the reserve pull. That could be a thread of its own.

At one DZ I jump at one is just expected to be current. Do the 90-day refresher jump w. an experienced jumper (>100 jumps) and that's OK. At another DZ the DZO, who is pretty conservative, also has a spring tandem instructor meeting (as well as a meeting for other instructors, the videographers, etc.). (Hint to riggerrob: DZO's first name is Joe.) At both DZ's one pays slots plus a significant tandem gear rental fee for the refresher jump. (The fee isn't that much different than what I saw at a ratings school in Z-hills lately though.) The DZO is a tandem instructor so he usually supervises the session, although sometimes some senior tandem instructor at the DZ might organize parts of it. In the meeting we watch the ancient UPT tandem training video again. Technically we're supposed to see it every 6 months but for those of us who have seen it a few times, it gets rather boring. A lot of it is pretty antiquated, or no longer applicable to the Sigma we jump. We also write the tandem instructor tests again and correct them. It really isn't bad to review all that stuff every year. (Various non-applicable non-Sigma questions are edited out). The DZO keeps the tests so he's got proof that his staff have had annual recurrent training. Chicken handles? We made some up but many of us don't bother for the currency jump. During the meeting we also talk over tandem issues, and in the past I've often put together all of the DZ's tandem related incident reports and anecdotes from the previous year to use as discussion material. By the end of the meeting it has probably degenerated into the usual arguing about manifest, pay, tandem policies, and so on. :) All the spring meetings are a bother, and the DZO does stretch things out longer than necessary, including things we instructors don't feel are important. Still, having some sort of spring instructor meeting to all get together and discuss issues and policies is something I like to see.

No brake setting eyes, is that what you mean? I think the idea is to avoid any lack of smoothness in the brake motion, by avoiding the lump from a brake eye. So one sets the brakes by daisy chaining the brake line around the brake ring. That's a little hard to explain here! One has to get the technique right otherwise one might have something that pulls out easily or locks up. Snugging the daisy chain knot up tight may be important too I think, to avoid burns when the brake line gets yanked tight on opening. (I haven't actually used the tubular brake lines though, only regular brake lines without a setting eye, on my 'Foil.)

He may be pretty screwed up, but I have to say it isn't that bad a strategy in the circumstances. He should be able to find his reserve handle, and do so without dropping out of belly to earth. But if he can't, at least he'll be in a good body position for opening* -- and AAD's really are pretty reliable. (* Other than caveats about a chance of PC hesitation with too nice & flat a body position.)

I recall reading about a cypres save when a dude doing crw thought he deployed his reserve but it was someone elses canopy on him. Yeah, I remember reading about that. Maybe a decade back?? Guy tracked for a lake, figuring it was worth a shot, after someone hacked a canopy away that wasn't his reserve as he thought. Still, the original question is a valid one when it comes to the usefulness (or danger) of AAD's for CRW.

Because sometimes new jumpers need a little while to get together all the money they need for gear, so they don't immediately buy one, even if they really want one. Because its a big investment if one has a rig that is worth less than an AAD. Because the effective annual cost it is a big proportion of one's skydiving expenses in years where someone only makes 10 to 20 jumps a year. Because it is hard to fit an AAD onto my belly mount that uses cones and pins. Because it is expensive if one owns a bunch of rigs, where those rigs only occasionally get used. Because AAD's aren't made to be easily swapped from rig to rig without repacking them. Because for some types of jumping, they aren't nearly as useful, such as for accuracy. (You can still kill yourself hitting the tail of the airplane... so they aren't totally useless.) Because some argue that they don't want an AAD fire during a CRW wrap. (Others argue that if you are going down really fast at 750-850', you're already in deep shit.) Because sometimes the DZO just wants to cover his own ass from lawsuits by making you buy extra equipment that cost him nothing. In effect, he gets you to buy his insurance. Because it pisses off some of modern jumpers who want to impose their newer values on others. Because it gets expensive if you smoke it low. (I try to avoid that low.) Because some AADs are no good if you get them wet in a pond. Because I started skydiving when you were expected to pull on your own and die if you didn't. Because I don't want to have to pay for other people forgetting to pull on time. Still, I have a Cypres 2 on my main rig. And when I was a newbie, Tommy Piras took me under his wing for a jump. So don't think I don't know the value of an AAD.

(Yes it is correct that it is 500 RW or AFF / Tandem.) Maybe Bill Booth really does believe his limits are reasonable. But then I'd expect him to be out talking about the issue a lot more, how the camera flyers in the industry must be at a higher level than often found at smaller DZ's. Also, other rig manufacturers (and indeed UPT) for don't put limitations on solo rigs (duh, other than weight & speed). You never read about someone saying, "Hey, I didn't realize that the manual says that I'm not allowed to do head down with my new Vector 3 until I've got 300 jumps!". These sorts of limitations are more about the activity of skydiving rather than inherent limitations of the gear... and thus can be seen as being more about protecting the manufacturer than the user, even if they do both. ========= By the way, for all that stuff in the manual about '500 RW jumps or AFF or tandem rating' (which has been in the manual since Vector 2 tandem days), what exactly is the "User Agreement under which Tandem Jumping is operated" that is mentioned? Is that something one signs when buying a tandem rig? It isn't something I recall signing as a tandem instructor. Or does it relate to the no longer in force US FAA 'experimental' status of tandems? That would affect how we interpret the RW & tandem rules.

Ha ha. Bill put limitations on tandem operations that are a significant restriction on the way that tandems are done in the industry. They are rules that go far beyond the legal limits, and are hard rules and not simply an advisory on risks. Sure, it could still be debated whether the whole industry sees it as reasonable that camera flyers must have at least 500 relative work jumps, 100 camera jumps, and 100 relative work jumps in the past year. [sarcasm] It's nice to have a big tandem industry to sell your gear to, and then in the fine print try to leave the customers extra liability...

Many of us will agree that 'the rules' are broken, and that there are real hazards to be avoided when it comes to 'following' tandems (including as a videographer). But it still comes down to Bill Booth writing up a contract that is often broken because I think a large proportion of DZ's and jumpers find it unreasonably strict, and unworkable in the industry. It makes it look like the contract is all about protecting his ass ... and that he doesn't mind exposing his customers and instructors to liability when doing so.

Just a couple observations to add to the many on threads like this one: I and 3 friends flew out of Tampa, Florida today. Three of us with Cypres 1 or 2's in our rigs made it through the TSA checkpoint without anything but a longer look at the scanning monitors, but then we got held up for a while because one guy had a Vigil and they "couldn't see inside it" and it looked "more like a weapon" -- a bit of an odd problem with having a robust metal case! The TSA folks did know about nearby Z-hills, and eventually let us pass after talking things through and having the main container opened so the Vigil could at least be felt at the bottom of the reserve container. Later in the day, doing the TSA thing at Dulles airport (Washington DC), they shut down two screening lines for about 10 minutes when our carry on gear started going through the scanners. (Although the first guy got through the whole process without being stopped...) For that time the TSA people conferred, radio calls were made, and a supervisor came to sort things out. A few rig and hand swabs later we were good to go. At least they told the growing crowd behind us that there was a "technical problem" instead of setting us up for lynching. After some fairly carefree experiences with TSA on other recent flights, most of us didn't have Cypres and Vigil x-ray cards handy (even if they were somewhere buried in paperwork or checked luggage). Having them at hand would likely have sped things up, the supervisor said. All the TSA folks we met were courteous and friendly (on this particular trip).

Looks nice but I can't quite interpret the photos. What is the white thing? Some sort of buffer strip at the 'mouth' where the lines come out of the pouch? (I use a home made bag mod, with 2 locking stows plus a line pouch. Without getting into details, it has a couple fixed tabs on the bag and a small strip of velcro to open the pouch a bit. The lines S fold in like on a reserve freebag rather than figure eighting like on a tail pocket. It's been working great for 600 jumps. No noticeable difference in openings when I went to it -- although I expect any tendency to spin the bag up to be lower.) I do wonder what kind of friction wear there is on lines with bags like these, as the lines are pulled out between the layers of fabric or past each other. But, who knows, there may well a similar amount with regular elastics too. (Remember how elastics on hip rings - to hold down t-shirts in sitfly - were wearing harness webbing.)

Still, temperature differences in the airmass relative to the international standard atmosphere will change the readings -- whether it is SAS or TAS. So there's no advantage either way. I still prefer normalized data to better evaluate fall rates. While you prefer using TAS to compare to other devices that don't adjust for altitude.

I think SAS is a great thing as it makes speeds at different altitudes comparable. So if you are at terminal and staying perfectly still, it won't show you doing 130 at 12k, 120 at 8k, 115 at 4k and so on -- it'll just show you the equivalent for 3000'. It'll show pretty much one constant speed, because it is trying to adjust for air density variation with altitude, and thus variation in true air speed. Now, it is true that L&B don't say anything about the exact density altitude correction applied. But for our purposes the usual standard atmosphere tables will be sufficient to take out most of the speed variation with altitude. We know that the L&B gadget can't take all factors into account -- ground height above sea level, temperature variation, pressure variation from the standard, etc. But it is a very useful thing that it does. I bet other devices must have something similar. The actual speed variations on a jump are messy enough without having to deal with a 20% variation in terminal velocity through every jump, if one is looking at the data (or graphs on the computer for a Protrack).

It tends to get exposed much more easily on Sigma's than on single person V3's. But a photo would explain it better.

That sounds like one of the very earliest ultralights. The link was 404 but it I'm guessing a Lazair, a machine with a highly efficient wing - not much else could fly on that sort of horsepower. They never claimed more than a few hundred feet per minute climb -- and that's with everything perfectly tuned. Your machine sounds like something that would have appeared about 1979, when the sport was extremely experimental and few engines were available, people were adapting chainsaw-like engines, using direct drive, trying to make their own belt reduction drives, and so on. In comparison, the smallest Rotax 2-stroke you can get these days is 41 hp. Two strokes are certainly more fiddly to maintain and treat right. It's a whole other world if flying something with am 80 hp Rotax 912 4-stroke these days, much bigger / faster / heavier than those original ultralights. Still, airplanes take enough fiddling and learning about so one wants to be 'really into it' if taking care of one.

It's funny how Aikins comes on here and, maybe being a little defensive, does this great impersonation of a total asshole who doesn't care about the rules or his actions... which in turn makes it looks like he is exactly that and thinks exactly that, confirming some stereotypes of Red Bull jumpers. If we were all standing around the campfire this would all probably get sorted out with a little more laughter and beer. Even if we tandem instructors all have our bad drogue toss stories, for what it is worth, it was still a bad drogue toss.

I think that's what it is. That's just all the jump memory it has, having been designed when wingsuits were rare.

Some people paid for advancing our understanding of how things worked... I think in paragliding these days, it is done with the line on a pulley -- so if the tension jumps the guy in the back of the vehicle can let tension off by paying out the line. Much faster and more contolled than shouting at the driver to let off the gas.

This might be blindingly obvious, but they didn't show 119 seconds of freefall by any chance? Sounds about right for even a basic wingsuit flight at a turbine dz. That's an old limitation of the Protrack for wingsuits. I think that when it hits 119, it also considers freefall to be over.

As an aside, what kind of reserve was it? Earlier canopies' labels were often different than the modern ones.