pchapman

Sometimes the answer is a "good" arch, and not simply a "hard" arch. A student can be trying way too hard, and be too stiff in the air, and have problems -- because they aren't symmetrical or part of their body is in the wrong place. The answer often is more subtle than just "arch harder!!!". Certainly people can have back issues or need to work on stretching. Also, arching while lying on the ground is harder to do than in the air, so lifting everything off the ground except one's belly can be tough to do for long.

Well, that would be handy in any of those discussions about old skydiving gear and the degree to which nylon canopies and webbing age and lose strength etc.! But that's for another day.

That post clearly stated the issue you saw, about main side flaps being pulled in so far that they wear on and restrict the movement of upwards-folding pin cover flaps. I'm curious whether others have seen the problem much too. You mentioned Icons in addition to Vector III's. I see in the Icon manual they call for 4 to 6 daN of force, which they don't translate into Imperial, but which is 9 to 13.5 lbs -- Just as a comparison to what others call for. The Icon though uses a reserve tray mounted loop, and the manual says nothing about not lining up the container grommets. So I'd guess that for an Icon, if the side flaps are rubbing on or interfering with the pin cover flap, that's more a problem with the design, than misuse by the user. But the Vector III is a different case, as it is designed to be used with grommets not lining up. I can't recall, are there any other rigs like that? Even in the manual, showing a good pack job, the side flaps do touch the main pin cover flap, as seen in the photo here. So a little bit of wear is possible, and any over-shortening of the loop will certainly cause more contact. [inline v3-pin-cover-in-manual.jpg]

That's where the planning thing comes in, that others talk about. Wind conditions change, but maybe before you took off you already could see that the ground winds were low or getting lower. And your wind check before going into the circuit might have shown that there were low winds at circuit altitude (although perhaps not). And you should have seen wind socks while in the circuit, showing no wind. So that would suggest that when you turned onto final at 200', you'd want to be set up fairly far back as you'd be expecting a great glide ratio, maybe moving towards a point only 25 or 30 degrees below the horizon and not say 60 or 70 degrees like on a strong wind day. (Now if the wind is stronger at opening altitude and at the start of the circuit, but is dead down at ground level according to the wind socks, that is tougher to deal with, as one isn't sure if the wind will die at 100' or 600'. There one has to be ready to perceive the change while in the circuit and adjust it, or try to find a landing path where a bit of an error either way about the winds won't cause an obstacle issue. ) It's those "planning ahead" steps that try to keep you from getting stuck in a corner, figuratively and literally. (And if as a newbie you mess up your flare, as does happen, you want to be aware of it and be ready to roll. Even experienced jumpers try to 'save' a landing and sometimes end up on their face instead of getting ready to roll. PLF's get you laughed at, but you can still jump after being laughed at....)

Edit: Well, this is an old thread that's been ressurected! There are always so many variables involved in parachute (& jumper) reliability. Still, you are just looking for an average and aren't trying to separate different circumstances. Excluding CRW and intentionals, at one time I would have said 1997 jumps and 0 cutaways, which was looking good. But then the next day it was 1998 jumps & 1 cutaway. And now I'm at 3334 jumps & 5 cutaways = 1/668. (Add one more cutaway if including CRW.) Cutaways: 1 * tandem tension knot 2 * spinning line twists on a 75 square foot canopy that I bought super cheap because it malfunctioned a couple times before 1 * accidental one-sided cutaway of a canopy (my fault and not the canopy's) 1 * tension knot on my regular crossbraced canopy when the lines got old

You wouldn't be doing the 3,500 jump unless you passed the 5,500 jump first, where you already demonstrate pulling stable within 5 seconds. That Cat F stuff follows Cat E, where one jump involves a stable exit up high. So it is all part of a progression system. Also, the 3000' floor is higher than for other jumpers to allow for a bit of a buffer, even if the student breaks that floor. Still: I suppose you personally might argue that more jumps need to be done to prove that a student has a better statistical chance of performing correctly, and not just doing so once at each level. Or you might argue for some intermediate type jump, where the jumper does practice deployments 'on the hill', but then deploys a bit later while flat and stable as they are used to in their AFF high jumps. That might take, say, 10 seconds to pull instead of just 5, and should allow both a more comfortable deployment, and practice of deployment just out the door. That would be a reasonable intermediate stage to add, as long as the system wasn't geared to listing the minimum possible number of jumps in the program. I'll still argue that 3,500' is sufficient, but won't totally dismiss your concerns, even if my first reaction is "man up". (I remember in the early '90s as a newbie at a C-182 DZ that if I were doing a solo jump, if I were in freefall at 2800', I'd do something like throw in a backloop before deploying... because who wants to deploy way up high like that anyway, waste freefall time, and get bored sitting around under a big canopy?? [Legal pull altitude was 2,200' for me at that time & place])

To clarify, ChrisD is talking about rigs where (a) there's a specific recommended length in the manual (eg, Vector III) and/or (b) the loop is anchored at the bottom flap so has limited ability to change in length to accommodate different canopies I for example have a Vector II which in contrast anchors the loop on a small tab the reserve pack tray. Depending on the canopies I put in it on a given day, the loop can be 1 1/2" long or 5" long. That's the kind of rig I personally like. (Although obviously a Vector II is behind the times in other ways, and there are better and worse ways to anchor loops up by the reserve tray.). ChrisD: Usually the big fight in skydiving is to get main closing loops that aren't too loose. I haven't generally seen the issue of loops that are too tight, but you are welcome to take a look at that situation...

It can be awkward for DZ's to accommodate students who started with different gear and procedures at different locations. Still, that can often be taken care of with an extra long briefing (and a smaller payment) and perhaps a repeat of a jump at your current level. You've already passed AFF L1-3 (quite similar to PFF), and done some GFF jumps.... so one would think the DZ would be able to slot you in somewhere appropriate to your skill level, whatever method of training they use. I could understand it if they said that despite passing L3, they'd like you to do one more 2:1 PFF jump with their instructors, instead of going right to 1:1 ... just to be on the safe side, despite the extra expense to you. Talking with a senior instructor or manager would normally help, as it might be less clear to regular front office staff (who are often not instructors) what to do.

I'll make an addition to that: All the leg lifting we do while doing arch practice on the ground has the problem that in freefall, we're usually pushing down more with the lower legs, against the air, rather than trying to lift them. So if doing arch practice lying on the floor, it can be better to have feet up on the edge of a couch. One can still 'lift' parts of one's body into an arch, but push out and down with the lower legs.

Which is why the rule isn't needed! The general culture is to open higher; it isn't like newbies are all clamoring to pull at 2000' as soon as they get the right license. The current rule allows flexibility instead of forcing a rule that is appropriate for the majority of people in most typical cases.... but not for other cases. It's a bit like mandatory AAD rules. Why force the issue when just about everyone knows they are a good idea and wants them? People seem to like to oversimplify issues. Instead of a reasoned discussion on what is a MINIMUM vs. what is GOOD in different circumstances, they want to see one rule for everyone, all the time. (Although at least they distinguish by license level.) (In practice, I'm usually a high puller like most people these days -- after all, other people break off high, turbine spots aren't perfect, and one needs altitude to set up for a swoop. But on the other hand, I'm perfectly happy to hop and pop at 2200' [Canadian minimum] with an accuracy canopy, or smoke it down to 2200' and dump straight out of the track with my crossbraced canopy at 2.1 loading...)

Ok, I'll bite -- Your post did get me to go look through a recent Vector manual. (Oct 2010, Rev 1, apparently the latest). While some manuals do get pretty old before updating, it is good to see that this manual has a lot of little updates -- there are some things UPT recommended jumpers do with their gear in the past, that they don't now. While washers aren't mentioned in the text, the replacement parts section shows a washer: [inline vector-main-loop-from-manual.jpg] Most people are used to using a washer, and it seems important when using standard type IIa with a single overhand knot under a #0 grommet. As you point out, other bigger knots are possible, and nothing in the manual says a washer is mandatory. But unless a jumper knows very specific techniques that make a washer redundant, I wouldn't want to tell them that you don't need a washer for their closing loop! I personally don't see any issue with wear from washers on the closing loop... but I make sure the rounded edge of the washer is against the knot. You may notice that the sharper stamped edge of the washer is against the knot in the photo, which isn't what I like to see, even if any wear is likely to be very slow...

I always considered kill lines to be replaceable through local riggers. Perhaps the manufacturers would like you to buy all new gear every year, but whatever. A kill line often enough seems to wear out well before the rest of the pilot chute and bridle. Sometimes the kill line is truly worn, sometimes it has just shrunk excessively in the case of a spectra kill line. (Sometimes in those cases there's enough slack in the finger trap to extend them.) A worn out kill line happens maybe half way to 3/4 the way through the life of the PC? The bridle to bag connection can also get seriously worn before the rest of the system, and that can be hard to fix, so sometimes it is easier to replace the PC & bridle when that part is just about done its lifetime. But I don't inspect enough gear to be sure what the distribution of cases is, so other opinions are welcome.

Fair enough, and maybe standard practice where you've been, or back in the early days. But I've personally never seen it be a requirement. Never heard of any instructor told to wear a hook knife, just as we don't carry fire extinguishers just in case the one in the plane is missing. The DZ probably got a little complacent as there had reportedly never been a static line hangup there in 30+ years of operation...

Yes, if I want to get working jumps done, at my convenience, at a location near friends and family, it unfortunately happens to the the best place for me. I mostly take my fun jumps elsewhere. And yes I expect that every time I post about something that is silly at the DZ, you'll tell me to get out of there. You left, and and are enjoying your new place. Every DZ has its pluses and minuses.

what a total dick of a JM. Ill just keep yelling KNIFE, 'cause i dont have a friggin clue He was understandably rather motivated to find out where the frigging hook knife was, in a dangerous and time sensitive situation, while he searched for one. The one that was always in the plane had been stashed away from its usual holder by someone else, and the pilot didn't know where it was either. And the jumpmaster had by chance lost his personal hook knife recently and was waiting for a replacement to arrive. While theoretically he might have noticed the missing knife when entering the plane, it isn't like jumpers normally inventory all the plane's safety equipment every time they board the aircraft...

Regarding the difference in viewpoints between Squeak and Skydive604: Perhaps it can be argued that fear is not a reason to quit, unless it is so strong that it seriously affects performance. Or unless the person was in dreamland before and only then realized that, gee, maybe it is possible to get killed in the sport. Deciding whether to quit should be made on the basis of a more objective evaluation of risks. If the reward to you isn't worth the risk, ok then quit. Indeed, a lot of fear can be interpreted as lack of reward for the activity, and thus be a reason to quit. Whether a student is scared witless in the door or is pretty calm about it all, will be poorly correlated to the actual amount of risk they are experiencing as a skydiving student. So I guess I'm both arguing against fear being a reason to quit (on its own), and fear being a valid reason to quit (if other factors are considered in conjunction with it).

Funny. The old tradition, not always observed these days, is for the jumper to buy the rigger a bottle of booze, if the jumper used the rigger's reserve parachute pack job. Wonder if the instructor passed the bottle on to the dropzone rigger.

She could be indeed fishing, and we skydivers like to make fun of whuffos [non-skydivers] who can't hack it, but she could also simply be wanting to understand the situation more. Let's give an example where we are the whuffos: I don't know much about sailing. Let's say I pay for the chance to be on a sailing boat participating in a small race for a few hours. Half an hour out, in unexpected wind gusts, the boat tips, the sail hits the water, we're thrown in the water, have to get picked up. Nobody hurt. It happens. Crew members start muttering about how the stupid passenger got in the way when they were trying to tack and adjust the sails. I know I was told to keep out of the way of the crew, and I did the best I could, but yeah, maybe I did get in the way when the crew were trying to move the sails. Everyone is really busy that day and nobody sits down with me to explain the details or why I got less sailing time than expected. So I start asking a few questions. Some of my questions sound silly or accusatory, because, well, I don't know sailing boats. I mean, what's wrong with those people if they can't manage to keep their sailing boat upright? Why take a passenger if they can't manage that? Why sail that day if they couldn't hack the wind conditions? Then everyone clams up, because they think I'm fishing for a lawsuit. I ask other sailors, and they laugh at me, "What's wrong, you lived, right? You signed the waiver, you went out on the water, if you die, you die like us..." Um, ok, but can't I ask a few questions and try to understand what happened? So who knows, but I'll give her a little benefit of the doubt.

As Dave Lepka said, what is your concern here? But I do see where you might have concerns: I can see that maybe a dz owner simplifies the story you are told, without sitting down and explaining it all, patiently and in great detail trying to explain the nuances of skydiving and different probabilities of different things happening. Just a short overview might make someone feel they are being talked down to, or indeed even "lied to", if "the story" isn't "the full story in all its detail", even if that was never the intent. Or someone might get the impression that the dropzone is making it sound like it is all the passenger's fault, on the basis of some exasperated utterance by the tandem instructor. Bad drogue tosses do happen. A student going into a bad body position and not the trained body position may make that more likely. An instructor should be able avoid having that causing a bad drogue toss; indeed, part of the role of the instructor is to be able to outfly errors on the part of the student. Still, every instructor has probably had a bad drogue toss at some time, even if not that bad. I'm not sure what the problem was after the drogue was freed, why it supposedly didn't inflate normally. It could have knotted on itself after the entanglement. Again I'm not sure about the pull cord issue, what that means. Something is garbled in the translation. However, if the drogue was collapsed it might not be able to pull out the main canopy properly, in which case going straight to the reserve parachute is appropriate! The DZ might have something to say about to what degree the passenger complied with instructions, although it is expected that first time students can't always do what they are told due to the stress of the jump. That's why they are doing a tandem and not a solo first jump, one might say. Still, it wouldn't be totally out of the question if the passenger requested another jump, given that the pasenger didn't get anything like the long freefall that I'm sure was promised on the DZ's website. The dropzone might offer that as a goodwill gesture, whatever the fine print. So maybe your husband was indeed a poor student in freefall from the point of view of an experienced skydiver, but on the other hand, students are expected to be dumbasses from time to time.... because they aren't yet experienced skydivers and can't be expected to always do the right thing. Instructors try to compensate for that. Usually they are successful, but things don't always work out perfectly, despite everyone's best intentions.

As usual from the US though, shipping costs are the killer. It's usually around $45-50 US (plus customs charges and taxes at the border of course), although I've had really small packages with shipping costs of only $18 or so. I often get the Priority mail (6-10 working days I think) instead of the faster Express mail. Still, what with Canadian customs, I've had Priority Mail shipments come in at the full 10 working days, or even up to a month from the ship date. One can ask for Priority mail manually in the comments box for Paragear orders. However, how much that saves is unclear. I've seen it where for the package weight, it should cost $23 by Priority, $37 by Express. But that's before insurance, and Paragear only ships with insurance. If one added insurance on, and this was for a fairly expensive $400 US package, the numbers would be $29 Priority, $39 Express. Yet there are a couple confusing factors: - Paragear uses a private insurer - shipping costs aren't shown during the order process As one person at Paragear explained to me in 2009: So in the end Paragear says that Express costs only marginally more than Priority. Without being able to see shipping costs ahead of time, unlike for some of the big online retailers we are used to, it is all a bit of a crapshoot. I still tend to ask for Priority Mail. For the typical amount of stuff I buy, 100-200 bucks at a time, one can usually multiply the Paragear item costs by a 1.3 factor to give the final cost at your door. That's in an era with a strong Canadian dollar. When it was at .67 US or so, costs were another 40% higher. Other retailers aren't immune to the same postal issues. For example, once a tiny order from Jumpshack was put in a flat envelope, shipped by regular mail, and got to me really cheap, $4 shipping. A similar order in another year, got sent full Priority Mail without me expecting it, and cost me $27. One really has to work to stay on top of shipping costs! Usually I've had no customs issues. They tax you HST & their inspection fee and that's it. Once when I had a larger order with some friends, maybe $800, then customs started inquiring about the country of origin of each item, and took $144 in duties before giving me the package. I had to go through the hassle of writing a detailed letter to them, listing each item and where it seemed to be made. (Most from the US, but Cypres batteries in Germany and T-shirts in central America.) Luckily I got the money back. Paragear normally doesn't include any long list of items and country of origin as it isn't usually an issue. Like most consumers, I just want my stuff, and am not expecting to have to deal with what duties there might be. So in the end, sometimes I'll get an order together with some friends, but I'm now a little wary of any super-large order with a lot of different stuff in it. Anyway, it's all just my opinion as someone occasionally ordering a few things from Paragear.

"Before his time" so to speak. Reminds me of Peter Albert, also an RW jumper & competitor & BASE jumper from the 80s era, who died a couple years ago, also presumably having fallen on harder times. More info on Scotty that I found: http://lifeplace.basicfunerals.com/component/obituary/detail/1618 I didn't really know him but he was of the generation of good jumpers in my part of the country when I was just getting started. BSBD

Yup, that's exactly why the DZO is doing 'after the last load landed', because he's the guy who cares about liability, what with the decades he's put into building up his business. At the same time, I care more about reality, and not abstract liability, because it is just as true that jumpers have not been drinking when they are jumping, whether or not the beer comes out after the last load took off. He's more about the appearance of liability, whether or not anything is actually wrong. I need to find a little plastic vodka hip flask, filled with water, to take with me when doing tandems, to take the occasional swig out of...

I'm trying to understand the rules at different DZ's as to when beer can be brought out at the DZ. Feel free to make any comments necessary if my poll categories are poor choices. A bunch of jumpers at my DZ were surprised on the weekend when the DZO started confiscating beers that had been passed around, because the last load had not yet landed, although the jumpers were all under canopy. Clearly the jumpers' and DZO's opinions on what is acceptable and normal differed greatly. The beer rules have not yet been officially posted anywhere. (Although he'll accept a Swoop & Chug, the DZO doesn't otherwise want any beer visible until the last load has landed. Too much of a liability issue.)

Ah, "no skydiving-clause".... ... not a "no-skydiving clause". The title is easily misinterpreted!

I didn't check the video, but may be a type of swoop mod: Brakes set at normal point but line not thru ring. Instead it goes thru another ring higher up, right up by the slinks. Less restriction on brake line movement, whether in general or for front risering.