pchapman

I knew a girl and her boyfriend who were both advanced students at the DZ. She had her first mal, which freaked the boyfriend enough that he quit the sport. She continued on to get her license. (Not that long afterwards, she moved to another city, so the boyfriend was history, one way or another.)

Finish the story, will you! How many points did you turn?

Eule: Yeah I knew the EXIF data was still in the photo (of post 69), but what the heck, that's an 'easter egg' for the truly curious! The weather was different on the 18th, by the way. :)

I don't mind dusting off old threads, so here's my 2 cents. I don't know which sounds more stupid, accidentally getting sucked going low, or intentionally going low - as below. And silly activities always sound worse when done recently. If one says it took place in the '70s or '80s, then everyone is a lot more accepting. Anyway, once upon a time, it was a grey autumn day at the DZ. Much of the day the overcast ceiling hovered just at or under the legal minimums. Only a small group of jumpers were around, making hop and pops. Then the DZO was off somewhere on an errand. One, uh, 'friend' took out his wingsuit and decided to try to get some freefall time. An old F-111 CRW canopy was used. The C-182 pilots were giving high speed passes, at the maximum door open speed of 100 mph. When some jumpers faced that for the first time (at least on a 182), they looked like first jump students, struggling with the unexpected wind. The high speed exit and flight straight up jump run minimized altitude loss in the first seconds, and fooled the Protrack into showing the exit slightly lower than the actual 2000'. Normal freefall tables show 2000' equals 15 seconds. Even with the exit error, the Protrack showed 15 seconds freefall -- not bad for a hop and pop day -- and open at 800'. Protrack display attached. It's just too easy to "do something once", so the jump was repeated. It doesn't need to be repeated again for a long time. (The other main low-pull thread that I know of is http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?do=post_view_flat;post=271397 . It is quite a bit longer but in the Bonfire.)

Hi Jim / fcajumps, a) No cheat sheet, so you're stuck with my long answer. (Any input from Teason is welcome too.) b) Regs for rigs? Basically none! Over the years there have been various small (compared to the US) rig & canopy manufacturers in Canada. Only a couple have gone through the process to get rigs TSO'd, either to be able to sell to the US or demonstrate that they make a quality product. I don't know the details but Transport Canada (TC) must run the inspections to the US TSO rules, and the US accepts TC's approval. Still it is nice to know that the majority of gear on the market is TSO'd, even if one can be cynical about parts of the TSO system. (e.g., a nice freefly Mirage that still has the big Low Speed TSO placard, or that Vector III that's just a Wonderhog with a few minor changes, in the eyes of the FAA). Gear rules (like jumping with a reserve, and having it packed within 180 days) come from the CSPA, not TC. Nothing defines exactly what a "reserve parachute" is -- it's just a matter of community standards, as to what a rigger would accept to pack or not pack. TC has a very short list of rules concerning skydiving, unlike the FAA in the US. At a DZ one is likely jumping under CSPA rules (with a few from TC since the DZ is probably operating with a Special Flight Operations Certificate to allow jumping in that airspace). But away from the DZ, as long as one obeyed TC rules on airspace, ATC contact, landowner permission etc, one could exit with a BASE rig & pull low. I'm willing to be corrected, but I've dug through all the regs I could find! One exception is for any 'real demo jumps' which are over crowds or built-up areas. There the TC rules stipulate a main & reserve (both ram air), and TSO'd gear. I'm not absolutely sure the TSO requirement doesn't get broken occasionally, if someone happens to own Canadian gear. Although all this doesn't matter to 99% of jumpers, it does allow for easier experimentation with gear. If someone wants to do an intentional cutaway in Canada, the way I've seen it done at a couple DZ's is pretty simple. An old belly mount reserve is hooked to one's main lift webs with separable rings and a couple tie down straps. Crude but accepted. One really nice thing about Canadian equipment rules - despite their apparent laxness - is that riggers here can judge things more on their merits, than the letter of the law. A Canadian rigger can look at a piece of equipment and say "that looks a bit weird, but based on my experience, it looks safe and I'm familiar enough with that kind of thing, so I'll pack it". If I may joke for a moment about the conditions US riggers work under, the US rigger seems to spend only half his time on actual rigging. The other half is spent trying to interpret the FAA rules: "OK, let's say I'm given a rig which is owned by someone living in the US, but he's a foreigner, and a diplomat, and the rig is half US TSO'd, half foreign built with no TSO, but the TSO parts were extensively modified without the manufacturer's approval, and weren't done by a rigger, but were done at the factory of another US manufacturer. Who determines 'suitability of components'? Am I legally allowed to pack it or not???" Those sorts of discussions seem to come up a lot, and even Billbooth has mentioned that there are grey areas. In the end, what all this means for this thread, is that Teason, as a rigger, can sew away to his heart's content on his rig. (I don't know his ratings, but technically the CSPA requires a Rigger B rating, not just the Rigger A, to do machine sewing.) (Teason: I'll leave aside any CAPS vs. CSPA issues that you'd be better able to comment on.)

Wmw999, Billvon, and Ron all brought up ideas about how we all do stupid things from time to time. So saying that the dead skydiver screwed up, isn't in itself saying the guy was any less able than anyone else. We ourselves might make the same mistake if we are inattentive, complacent, aren't on the ball, aren't as skilled, or just are having a bad day. My take on the same concept can be shown visually -- I tend to think of it as two probability distribution curves, one for the performance level needed, and one for the performance level achieved. (See attachment.) Usually a person's performance level is greater than that needed to complete the task successfully or safely. But sometimes a person just doesn't apply sufficient skill to complete the task. Or fate gives someone a tough situation, which they can only overcome if very able or very lucky. Sometimes it's hard to know whether someone's skills were sufficiently up to the task (like swooping), to be able to do it in reasonable safety day after day. We may only know from an accident that one day things didn't work out. That's only two particular points under the curves in the diagram. Beyond that, more information is needed to if we are to guess what the curves really look like, what levels of performance might typically be required or achievable. If the information isn't easily available, we begin to speculate.

Another Mk I PC -- looking up into my former Golden Knights canopy.

Cool project, teason! Just last weekend I built myself a '3rd canopy' rig too. I went with the method of hacking apart an old rig to create a harness worn under one's normal rig, and then building a belly container. Such experimental projects make for a lot of different design tradeoffs.

Sometimes first jump students will boldly (or blindly) go where skydivers prefer not to tread! Over the years at the DZ one hears of or sees students chopping perfectly good parachutes. (Although of course they didn't think it was good.) End cells were closed; the chute colour wasn't what they showed in the course; the slider didn't go back up again; got scared because someone else had a mal the same day; heard ripping noises when trying to release a toggle; spiralled after releasing only one toggle; the list goes on...

Yeah it is subjective. Sometimes an opening is felt to be hard because of: - a high snatch force (not actually part of the canopy opening) - a bad body position (eg snapping you from a head down, shoulder low body postion) - a fast increase in the g loading (the 'jolt') (even if the maximum g is no different than usual) - g forces not along an the axis of the lines (shaking you from side to side as it opens) - high g when you didn't expect it (so you aren't prepared for the g's) The head & neck seem the most vulnerable to me - if they're not lined up with the g forces, the head snaps forward or back, easily leading to discomfort and complaints of a hard opening.

I got to jump a Jonathan 92 a few times in 1995. It was considered a hot parachute, not only because it was one of the early breed of elliptical zero-p canopies, but because this size was close to the smallest parachute ever in production. The only thing smaller that I knew of in that era was the Nova 88, but the Nova's had already gone through their grounding, ungrounding, and falling out of favour in 1994. Sabres and Stiletto's only came as small as 97 square feet. (But who knows what custom sizes factory pilots etc. got to fly.) The one I tried would buck unpleasantly when going on double front risers, but with the variations in design, I can't say if others did that too. That's always the problem in describing Jonathans. It flew and landed nicely at 1.8 loading on a hot summer day with almost no wind and a straight in approach, even when having to drop it in at the end of a flare, over a low fence or bushes. Impressive in the pre-crossbraced days. I had 205 jumps at the time, mostly on accuracy canopies -- It was back when a good "canopy progression" involved a prudent 2 or 3 jumps on each size before downsizing! :) What was the official spelling? Jonathan or Jonathon? Both are so often used I don't know which is correct. (Even with the Jedei, I thought it was Jed-eye or something at first, presumably for legal reasons.)

Rough approximations for equivalent atmospheric effects, for the altitudes and temps we deal with: +10 C ( +18 F) = + 1200 ft altitude = + 1.8% airspeed (or just call it 2% roughly) = 3.6% reduction in canopy size or a need for 3.6% increase in canopy size to counteract the effect So, ignoring any humidity differences which have a small effect, 100F vs 60 F gives about the same as an 8% size reduction on a canopy, which in many cases is a little bit less than one full size reduction. (Eg, a 150 canopy minus 8% = 138, while the next size down might be a 135.) A little more advanced: Some forget that the standard temperature depends on altitude. So they might be at 5000' in Colorado on a 15C day, and think that the temperature is "standard" and not adding any density altitude above the 5000' where they are standing. But the standard is not "15 C", it is 15C minus 1.98 C / 1000 ft. So at 5000' and 15C the temp is already about 10 C above the standard, making the density altitude even higher. Yes there's lots of aviation literature out there on the effects of temperature and altitude.

It's a great graph that certainly has a lot of years of data on it. To visualize what's been happening more recently, it might be worth focusing only on say 1990 to the present, or even remove having to interpret slopes, by showing only the added quantity per year, not the cumulative. And if one really wants to go nuts, make a per capita version using population statistics... Presumably all the numbers were assigned basically consecutively, without any skipped numbers. (In my country there was once a block of numbers skipped for one licence level because of a clerical error.) Another 'just to confirm' question: Have the US A license requirements stayed roughly the same since say 1990? [Edit: Jan / MakeItHappen has covered that in a post while I was writing my answer. Still it would be interesting to know what years the minimum jump numbers changed.] I would guess that highly organized student programs, especially using AFF related methods, tend to get bunches of students to the A license, even if they don't continue afterwards. If students can rapidly get to the A, some will do it, even if they they decline to go further in the sport. A DZ that isn't as focused on package deals and rapid progression may have students drop out of the program at any time along the way, with less chance of fighting their way through to the A license.

Yes, often a cheaper alternative would indeed do just as well! But there can be some valid reasons a person ends up with the crossbraced. Sometimes the flight characteristics of a crossbraced are preferred. For example, even without a diving approach, the long flare gives one time to adjust the flight path for a soft landing. (I noticed that on my early crossbrace jumps, even if the canopy was relatively much twitchier and demanded a solid initial flare to pull out of its high rate of descent.) And it's just plain fun. Also, until recently there haven't been a lot of canopies that flew a bit like crossbraces, yet weren't -- like Crossfires or Katanas. This could be especially true in the used market at particular dropzones. So sometimes the choice was between buying a used FX99 vs. a used Stiletto 120, with very different flight characteristics even if both are highly responsive. (I'm picking those sizes for very roughly similar pack volumes.) I think both arguments apply in the case of a girl at my DZ who flies an FX99. She's 120 lbs, maybe 1200+ jumps, tandem instructor, videographer, etc. She always lands straight in, and has zero interest in swooping. But she absolutely loved the zippy flying and soft landings when she bought a crossbraced canopy, and subsequently downsized to her current one. She's only loading the FX99 at 1.4, but prefers that over the kind of landing she would get with an older canopy (eg, a Stiletto 120) at 1.2.

I've seen canopy volume charts in a couple places. 1) On Jump Shack's website. Tends to cover older canopies more, but it does often show a couple sets of numbers, their own plus those from the PIA. 2) Para-Gear has a pdf document that mirrors the one page chart in every one of their catalogues. That's a good one for comparisons. Not perfectly up to date either. Rig companies' own charts may just show the volume of containters (eg, former-RWS for its Vector II), or may show typical canopies that would fit into the containers (eg for the Vector III). PD has a FAQ document on the issues with establishing consistent pack volumes. For many canopies one can find more than one number for size, often one optimistic one and one that's maybe a bit more realistic. I'm guessing companies are a bit wary these days of trying to give exact volume numbers. As for your situation, when a company doesn't publish info, one goes back to the old suggestion to give them a phone call... Any other better canopy volume sources out there?

Question: I'm curious what the philosophy is at DZ's for the reserve sizes in rental rigs that are used for downsizing. E.g., 150 to 210 sq ft mains. For advanced students, do DZ's insist on a good sized reserve (such as the same size as the main) or are they OK with "one size smaller" because after all, a reserve isn't jumped every day? Sure I read manufacturer's wing loading charts what's common in practice? Plenty of people jump rigs where the reserve is "a bit small", but they survive, maybe with a little dirt and scuff marks. I'm asking because sometimes a smaller DZ won't have custom-built rigs, but might instead just throw together older gear to make a handy downsize rig. (E.g., "Hey, here's an old Vector II, we can throw that Sabre 170 in it. It'll be OK with its Tempo 150?")

Another issue isn't where the money comes from, but where it goes. (This is more of a general answer, not necessarily specific to ryan_d's situation.) There can be inflated expectations in the sport -- "keeping up with the Jones' ". There are always going to be other jumpers who are more active in the sport -- buying cool new gear, downsizing regularly, going on skydiving vacations, making hundreds of jumps per year. There is perhaps more of a tendency these days for jumpers to be looked down on if they aren't super-active in the sport, because of the inflated expectations about what a "real skydiver" is supposed to be able to achieve. There are some things one needs to invest in, and some one doesn't. There's plenty of computer gadgetry that is entirely optional. And one can still be a skydiver without flying around the continent to attend tunnel camps and canopy control courses. In other areas, trying to save money is false economy, and you do need to spend the money up front. (E.g., if someone is tall & thin and trying to do RW, they may need to buy a dedicated RW jumpsuit and weight belt, rather than waste a lot of jumps where they are just too floaty.) One guy on the DZ I jump at just made his 500th after maybe 2 1/2 years in the sport. In contrast I took 10 years to get to 500, and had the same used set of gear for that whole time. Not always being a regular at the DZ did make it slightly tougher to make friends there. But overall, even if it wasn't ideal for currency and skills acquisition, I still had a lot of fun. I could still head out to a DZ any time I wanted to get into the air.

DeuG = French nickname for Patrick de Gayardon

Note that Reflexes built Feb '00 onwards aren't affected by the grommet-related service bulletins. Earlier ones should have the work done if they were at all properly maintained and haven't been sitting in a closet. (The bulletins involve inspections for grommets that aren't seated tightly against the fabric, and rework of one container flap including a new grommet. Small canopy lines can catch under a grommet that isn't seated tightly.)

So what exactly is or should be taught to newer skydivers about dealing with partial collapses? Countersteer to maintain heading (as much as possible without bringing the good side close to a stall), while doing a long stroke pumps of the brake on the collapsed side?? I didn't see anything about it in a quick search of the US SIM.

Yeah, basically mid afternoon onwards it was hectic, was a Santa Claus jump for the local kids, then a pre-planned 2 plane formation for a jumper doing his 500th (which got up just at sunset), and then everyone was trying to get the hell out of there to prepare for the annual x-mas dinner / presentations / party. There was more time to talk Sunday, given that it was solid cloud and hop and pops only... If you aren't totally lured by the turbines at Burnaby and Dunnville, do call the DZ back during the week to talk instead of waiting for spring. Those other two DZs are rather close together, but at least if someone doesen't like the atmosphere or needs a change of pace at one place they can go to the other for a while!

My normal minimum exit altitude: 1800', whether with a fast or slow canopy (Cypres off for the snivelly ones). While it is fun to joke about the AFF/PFF grads who won't exit or pull lower (even if 'legal'), let's face it, many people will want to approach anything new in skydiving with a little caution and without being highly uncomfortable. Nothing says you have to jump if you personally don't like the weather. That being said, many consider it good to be comfortable with getting out lower. I'd suggest doing things like: a) Throw oneself out of the plane a few times at a still comfortable altitude and hopefully find that it doesn't take very long to confirm that one is stable to pull, or that even with just throwing oneself out, it doesn't take long to get stable, belly to the wind, before the pull. b) Work one's way down in exit altitude when one has the chance, until comfortable down to say 2500'. c) Run the freefall numbers to remind oneself how little altitude is lost in the first few seconds (eg, CSPA charts show only 138 ft in 3 sec.) Here's my experience from another Ontario Cessna DZ which you can compare your experience to. Two weekends back a small bunch of us did hop and pops all day from 2000'-2200'. The group included those with fast, snivelly canopies. (Extra airspeed on exit helps a lot.) I figure that (excluding very low experience jumpers), the most conservative bunch of jumpers at the DZ would prefer no less than 3000', and might choose not go up unless they were sure of 2500'. Nobody bugs them for preferring a little more margin. But most experienced jumpers at the DZ will jump from 2200' (the CSPA limit) if that's where they are at and can't go higher. I think only half would choose to keep going up in those conditions (assuming they didn't just want to wait for a better day). There are things one will do occasionally but not make a habit of. Very occasionally over the years a load might jump from 1800' if that's all they got, but jumping would then stop. Anything lower would be regarded by all on the DZ as silly and wouldn't be condoned. Maybe good for bragging and campfire tales (like the couple long-delay wingsuit jumps from 2000' that one weekend) but not part of regular relatively low risk skydiving. Edit: I'm hoping we can keep this thread pretty much focused on the limits for "regular jumping", not 'crazy jump tales', BASE canopies, etc.

Nice to hear about the German reserve, of which little is heard on the left side of the Atlantic. Nice idea having the removable pull-down apex line for different inflation speeds. By "diaper", do you actually mean a diaper in the sense usually used for parachuting in the English language, where it wraps around the bottom of the canopy only? Then how is the canopy thrown out, and what is the handle attached to? Or is it (more likely) a "diaper" in the style of a hang gliding or paragliding emergency chute? In that case, is the "diaper" a bag or a 4-flap diaper? The paragliding reserves I'm familiar with tend to use a deployment bag. For paragliding, in English, the "diaper" term is only used for the four flap devices, where the flaps wrap around the canopy from four sides and closes at one point in the middle. Like the bags that have just one flap, the diaper is freebagged, and has the deployment handle directly attached to it. Diapers seem to be rare now in paragliding, but perhaps they are still used in hang gliding more often. Using a bag or diaper gets away from the awkwardness of the old skydiving bellymounts, where if there was no pilotchute, one had to gather up the folds of the canopy in two hands before tossing it away. I'm just trying to work out the technical details given different uses of words in different languages, and in different sports within a given language.

And I was shocked to see 3000 ft for US A licenses - bizarrely high! OK, I understand the ideas behind it, but it must be a relatively recent change? Through the 1990s in the USA it was 3000 student (or 3000/2800 for freefall vs static line), 2500 A & B, 2000 C & D. So historically, the Canadian heights weren't that much different from those in the US. Edit: The "fine print" in Canada is that listed altitudes are "at which the main parachute must be activated", which is a little different than the "container open" altitude someone mentioned for the US, although usually those fine distinctions are ignored.

Wasn't it BJ Worth who kept on getting work for setting up the skydiving stunts in a lot of Bond movies? Guess he was out of work on this movie. Not that I mind the direction the movie has taken; no need to automatically have a skydiving stunt each time.