pchapman

I'm sorry, I don't understand. Why are you comparing a momentary mental slip (that obviously doesn't relate to underlying lack of knowledge) to a fundamental lack of understanding of a particular technology? Politicians do have those fun slips from time to time; Bush #2 was particularly prone to them as I recall.

We usually say 'descent rate' when talking about the canopy flight rather than freefall. The basic aeronautical equations show that, all else being equal, the airspeed in a glide will vary with the square root of the wing loading. That will be sufficiently accurate for our purposes when you change the wing loading by changing the weight. If changing the wing loading by changing the canopy size, the formula isn't quite as good but is still a good approximation. (Other factors come into play even for the same type of canopy: You can change the size of the canopy 20% but you don't change the pilot chute, lines, or your own body by the same 20% in area. Not everything scales up or down the same amount.) So: Double the wing load = 41% more speed (root 2 = ~ 1.41) Or for example, adding 20% to the wing loading is a 1.2 ratio, take the square root = 1.095, so the increase in flight speed will be 9.5%. This applies both to forwards speed and downward speed. Glide ratio is unaffected by wing loading, at the first level of approximation. How the actual flare on the canopy works will depend on other factors (e.g., a given canopy can get appreciably harder to land beyond some high wing loading). Things like wind and human limits can also affect the perception of landing. (E.g., 2 mph more might not mean much unless it goes from a speed you personally can easily run out to a speed you can't easily run out.)

Scary horseshoe mal? What, as opposed to the warm and fuzzy ones? The video shows how well pocketed the main bag can be. It took quite a while after exit before the main came out of the container. It didn't happen until the sitflyer went briefly on his back.

I'm used to placing the chest strap fairly low on tandem students, lower than what one sees on a typical skydiving rig. So when the chest strap 'moves up' (relative to where it was on the person on the ground), the strap isn't too high. While the rest of the harness obviously has to be done up properly, with tandem students there is in general more 'sinkage' in the harness than we get for experienced jumper rigs. So it seems to be a practical thing to do, even if it does make the student feel a little less secure with the shoulder straps more easily sliding off particularly when sitting in the plane. Note for example the new "United Parachute Technologies 2012 Assumption of Risk Waiver Video" that's on youtube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFVINO-BqCw), at around 4:50 -- the chest strap is set quite low. (It does look a little higher on the actual jump at the video's beginning, but of course that may be from a different video take, and with some tension on the shoulders, it may have shifted up a bit.) Last I checked however, the UPT guide to harnessing students with the Sigma harness shows a more conventional higher chest strap position.

At some US DZ's, a CSPA Student or Solo is able to jump ... IF under the supervision of the properly rated CSPA instructor. You don't plan to tour around the US on your own anyway. If you wanted to go as part of the Canadian Invasion, there will be CSPA instructors going, some of whom will do some coaching or instruction of other Canadians while down there. Find one and talk to them first, before giving up on your plans!

Lie on the ground on your back, arms at your sides. Lift your upper body and arms some inches off the ground, and do the same for your legs. Balance there on your butt for 60 seconds. It may not 'hurt' but can be a bit of a workout. Although perhaps an exaggeration, a good track can feel like that. (I'm not sure if everyone agrees on that, but it does somewhat correspond to the pressure on the legs and the balancing issue that seems to apply to some good tracking. Other viewpoints welcome.)

Short answer: The Russian paratrooper canopies that I know do have a ground cutaway system for one riser. So they do recognize the risk of being dragged. Longer answer: Those canopies look like D-6 mains but I'm not up to speed on all the Russian paratrooper canopies. That kind of canopy does have a cutaway system on one riser, for use on the ground only, There's a soft handle outboard at the base of the riser that peels away from velcro and then pulls a pin that releases webbing that wraps around metal bars (vaguely like the 70's Strong Wrap), allowing the riser to separate. Edit: And the US has long used Capewell releases to connect both main risers on their paratroop systems.

Re: Dactyl manual Before you take the time to scan, check out the two different versions on parachutemanuals.com. Both can be found under the Main Canopy section, one labelled "DactylManual" and another "Paradactyl - shorter Guardian manual" (That one I scanned & uploaded) If your manual is different, it would be interesting to see!

I liked the line in a comment of yours, that you "pushed the definition of 'landing'". There's a sig line in something like that...

You're having fun there Chris! But I'm starting to get the feeling that a portion of the newer jumpers out there just don't have much of a clue if it isn't a zero-p 9 cell. So from our perspective (who feel we can land all sorts of shit), yes, they don't know how to land a canopy. I know one guy who was confronted with his first reserve ride, the smallest canopy he had yet flown. His error was to think because he was descending steeper and faster than usual, he'd start gradually introducing the first stage of his flare higher and earlier. Well, the reserve isn't going to retain energy like a typical main, so he just about buried himself in spring mud. He was lucky it was there. It shows that what seems entirely natural to some of us to deal with, has to be explained to others. So some warning that a reserve doesn't fly quite like a main is a first step. As for terminal, yes the Optimum is great for those. Other designs less so. (But again, it depends on the person, whether they are a Spectre flyer or know Sabre 1's.)

Good point. I dug into this issue a little more: I looked at both and older and newer manuals. The black and white one with line drawings that they had for many years shows the excess of the toggle NOT going under the velcro, but on the other hand shows a toggle unlike what's actually on the rig, that only has a slight bit of excess length, gently curved, rather than with a big zigzag fold. A newer "wings_reserve_packing.pdf" document doesn't address it in the text, and in one photo one can barely see the toggles in the dark to one edge of the photo, where it is hard to tell what is going on, but it seems to show the toggles NOT tucked under the velcro. Finally, the new colour manual "wings_owners_manual.pdf" doesn't mention tucking under the velcro, and shows a photo of the toggle NOT tucked. (The new manual has no date or revision number on it, that I can see, unlike the previous black and white manual....) So it is all a bit messy. To [sort of] summarize: Nowhere does it specifically say to ensure the excess is not tucked, however, instructions never say to tuck it. The newest manual clearly shows no tucking in a photo, while the traditional manual available for many years doesn't show the excess tucked, yet it doesn't properly represent the type of toggle used on the rig either. If someone is confused by the novel design feature and tucks the excess toggle loop under the velcro, they should realize that this totally negates the design feature of having such relatively 'big grab' toggles.

Yeah, they have one of the nicest reserve toggle designs. Less velcro, easier to grab. Sometimes I use clamps on other rigs' toggles to give them a bit of a set, with the loose part folded upwards like on the Wings, before packing them up.

...apparently, swoop ponds. When the handshake gets more complex than the dive you've planned, it's going too far.

A little courtesy would have helped here, one rigger talking to another if the one had serious issues with the other's work. Still, the circumstances in this case are interesting to read, as they show how riggers can differ in their opinions about gear, that there isn't always one answer.

= Advertisement: = Get Riggerrob's reserve repacks... because he scores really high on the Riggerrob Rigger Currency Test (TM). "If it isn't Riggerrobs, you got robbed!"

I know they require that sort of stuff posted in the aircraft, but passengers don't need to know about the ELT or extinguisher, do they? Still, TC does care about exits and seatbelts. We skydivers may think it bloody obvious how to work a skydiving door and an aircraft seatbelt. But TC regs do require that passengers of aircraft in general know where the exits are and how to use them. It may also be necessary for passengers to know how the seatbelts work, given that they aren't automotive push button style. So the idea of putting such things in the video is good. Do you still show a manufacturer's waiver video too? Or do you skip it because (a) we're in Canada so tough luck for Bill Booth (if that's the gear you use), and (b) because you don't feel it is worth doing a French voice-over for the majority of your customers. Just curious. I'm always interested in hearing how well-organized DZ's like Voltige are run.

Ok, I found a good source to debunk the 72 batwing deaths crap. Michael Abrams, who wrote "Birdmen, Batmen, and Skyflyers" discussed the issue in a blog of his from years back: http://icarusreport.blogspot.ca/2006/08/fatal-subtraction.html The 72 deaths statement ended up in a BirdMan owners manual, on the BPA website, and in various magazines. It sounds like it all started as a casual boast by one of the early pioneers, that got paraphrased in someone else's book : That's in the same vein as saying, "Skyboarding? Nobody does that anymore; they all died!"

[Care to start a new History & Trivia thread to ask about this maybe??] I think that number once got published somewhere, and then it keeps getting quoted. Yet some other author later said it was B.S. Some high profile cases are well known, like Clem Sohn & Leo Valentin -- but were there really 70 such jumpers? I'm highly doubtful. "Don't believe everything you read on the internet." -- Abraham Lincoln

Since MEL deals with a lot of canopy line sets, I assume that's an opinion based on a lot of actual experience! I was really surprised at how soft those lines are that Aerodyne uses -- just seems like they'll get snagged easier and fuzz up so much quicker.

They sell them for other rigs, at any custom length you want?? Wouldn't you need a large size ripcord housing for the firgure 9 pin, or do they have ones for regular pins?? Or are you suggesting everyone throw out their rig in addition to the ripcord, and replace both, buying a Vector?? Maybe you weren't quite clear in your statement and only meant it for people who already owned a Vector III.

True, but mind you, that simple rule doesn't necessarily translate into the proper physical action -- People sometimes have to learn how tightly they need to bring the arms in, or not to forget about the legs when stepping off, etc. Which is why it does help to have someone supervise a wingsuit newbie -- whether or not the supervisor has any rating from any particular organization...

Edit: Post deleted. See the following post by NWFlyer, thanks. I misinterpreted Namowal's list of injuries in the incident thread -- one leg and one arm broken.

Mind you, it is handy that cars have speedometers.

The attitudes of non-skydivers around skydivers who have been injured, can be interesting. The non-skydivers sometimes think that we should have gotten the silly idea of jumping out of our system by that point. Fertile ground for social observation & cartoons.

The paramag article didn't really say much specific. It noted that there were 3 incidents in France this year, and one was on a Velo 103 at 1.8 loading. The 3 incidents are for all AAD manufacturers combined, although it doesn't specifically say whether 1 or more AAD brands were involved. Other than that it is all general warnings about having the right settings or unit if you are highly loaded and swooping fast, blah blah blah, with links to French federation warning bulletins (with similar info), and a recap of the Adrian Nicholas death years ago. Edit to add: It seems the previous warnings and bulletins used a wing loading of 2.2 as an example of where the risk really started to go up, but they note that there's more to it than just that, because in this case a loading of 1.8 was sufficient to set off an AAD.