billbooth

Teflon spray is OK. It just doesn't seem to (pardon the pun) "stick"around as long as silicone spray, so you have to do it more often.

The whole video is available on line at the Today Show website. Somebody that knows how, will put up a proper link, I'm sure. Good job guys!

I took Violet Ross on her first tandem jump, over the North Pole...at age 84.

I once asked Tiny how many malfunctions she had on her 32' silk flat circular canopy. She answered, "27". I then asked her what she used for a reserve. To which she answered, "What's a reserve?"

I'd love to see the video. If the drogue collapsed, you would have felt the trap door. You would also have rapidly fallen out of frame on the video. The 3-ring makes a great canopy release, but it made quite a mediocre drogue release...especially with the double ended loops for the dual handle drogue release. Even when rigged correctly, they sometimes cause a hesitation because of the stiffness imparted by sewing such a small piece of line together. This might have been what happened to you. Pulling the second handle would have cleared up this situation. The only real solution I know for this problem is to get a Sigma. (Sorry, I couldn't resist.)

forget the "what ifs". You got yourself and your passenger to the ground safely. That's good enough for me. Thank you for doing a good job with a bad situation.

Call Relative Workshop and see if one of our Skyhook cutaway rigs will be near your location soon. We are out on the road constantly. That way you can get some training, and jump a rig that is set up for cutaways.

Because we're ramping up for a big military order in June, we have excess capacity for the next 6 weeks or so, which means you can probably get a custom Vector in about 6-8 weeks. Call and ask for an exact quote. After June, we are going to be very busy, and lead times will probably increase again.

Like a parachute?

Reversed risers, even "properly made" are simply a bad idea for a whole lot of reasons discussed here many times before. But one basic reason is that no one publishes a diagram of what a properly made reversed 3-ring looks like, so how can you tell if you've got one in the first place. Secondly, they are supposed to be stronger than normal type 17 risers. But, with people dying from hard opening shocks on Micro-lined canopies, do you really want stronger risers? Wouldn't you rather have a riser break before your harness (or you) break(s)?

I went through the static line progression. It was 1965...I had to. Luckily, making a first jump static line is a risk we no longer have to take. It's akin to learning to fly an airplane (or drive a car) all by yourself...without that instructor sitting next to you. Learning to fly or drive without an instructor has been illegal for decades. As much fun as I had "doing it myself" the first time, I can't wait for the day when static line instruction (for sport jumpers) entirely disappears. There...that should "stir up the pot" a little.

I absolutely understand that the most important thing you must do immediately after a breakaway is pull your reserve - stable or not - if you are low, or do not know your altitude. My comment about getting stable before you pull was not meant as an absolute instruction to novice jumpers. It was meant to convey my belief that, if you have the time, you should be stable when you pull your reserve. It is your last parachute, and an unstable deployment is not a risk worth taking, IF it can be avoided. My "instruction" to anyone who is reading this, is to pull high in the first place, so that you never get into the situation where you have to deploy your reserve while unstable. We shouldn't need AAD's and Skyhooks...but, unfortunately, we do.

The weak point of the Skyhook system is the "snap shackle" which attaches the RSL to the riser. I am working with one manufacturer to improve the current design, and am open to any ideas about a replacement that is more secure, but can still be released with one hand, relatively quickly. Any ideas?

I'm talking about the original Vector from 1979. The original Wonderhog dates from 1972.

The yellow cable is 1/16", 7x7 steel cable, coated to 1/8" with Lolon "F", a special nylon based plastic blend.

From what I have seen, it is always a good thing to "put the reserve where the main just was". I have watched literally hundreds of videos of reserve deployments, and I have never seen "cleaner" deployments than the Skyhook produces. A direct bag static line is a totally different animal. It pulls the top of the main into the relative wind. That is way too far "out of alignment". I agree that it produces horrible ram-air deployments. We had to develop a special dual-bag system so that the military could get successful static line ram-air deployments out of C-130's.

Careful...some of the newer jumpers here might believe that..and actually try it.

There are two simple reasons why we don't use hand deploy pilot chutes on reserves nowadays. AAD's couldn't be used, and spring loaded pilot chutes cannot be make collapsible. By the way, the original Vector was designed with a hand deployed reserve system. In practice, however, it didn't work out.

The first thing the Skyhook does is get your reserve to line stretch in about 1/2 a second. This is considerably faster than any pilot chute can do it. How many feet you will fall between cutaway and life saving reserve depends on how fast you were descending before the cutaway, and how fast your particular reserve opens. With most sport reserves, from a fully open main, far less than 100 feet is required. The other (probably more important) thing the Skyhook does is put your reserve right where your main just was, or exactly in line the with the vertical axis of your body. This yields beautifully straight and even line groups at line stretch. A pilot chute, however, always deploys your reserve with the relative wind. This becomes a very important difference when you breakaway from a spinning malfunction. Without the Skyhook, you must "get stable" and align your body into the relative wind before it is safe to deploy your reserve, because if you deploy with the relative wind at an angle to your body, you risk entanglement with the deploying reserve, and you will have "unequal" reserve line lengths at line stretch, risking a spinning reserve opening with line twists. So, depending on the severity of your "spinner", just getting set up for a stable reserve deployment make take many hundreds of feet, and that's before you even pull the reserve ripcord. This means that you will have to deploy your reserve at, or near, terminal velocity (ouch). Add in a little pilot chute hesitation, and all this could eat up the better part of 1,000 feet. (Remember, the faster you are falling, the more altitude your reserve will take to open.) That's why most people recommend cutting away above a grand. With the Skyhook however, reserve deployment starts immediately, and at line stretch, your reserve will be aligned perfectly with your body, with equal line lengths, even if you started with a spinning malfunction. And no pilot chute hesitation is possible. The difference here could be seven of eight hundred feet...and, you will be at the lowest possible airspeed. Fastest possible opening...lowest possible airspeed...highest possible altitude to avoid obstacles on the ground. What's not to like?

If you are not using Dacron lines, they would help. They stretch a little, and also slow the slider down due to surface friction. Spectra (micro) line does not. If you are already using Dacron lines, and still having hard openings, get a canopy that opens slower.

The hardest part of designing the 3-ring system in the first place was designing a handle that would stay put better than the then current metal loop ripcord handle. When a metal RESERVE ripcord handle comes loose, the pressure from the pilot chute spring on the pin will usually keep the reserve shut. However, there is no such tension on the 3-ring system, so if the handle comes loose, the whole system is much more likely to come apart. I believe that if I had set up the first 3-rings with metal loop handles, the entire system would have failed because of accidental releases. Remember, the most important function of any canopy release system is not to release. (It must stay connected for nearly 1,000 jumps for each time it is expected to release.) My soft 3-ring handle is the most snag proof handle ever invented. Please leave it alone.

I put "L" bar links on our tandem reserves because they are redundant. Even if a rigger leaves one screw out, they are still safe. Now it appears that even if a rigger leaves BOTH screws out, you still have a chance to survive! The same cannot be said for Rapid links. If you don't tighten them properly, it's all over. It's gratifying that a decision made over 20 years ago can save a life (or two) today.

Two good things I noticed in the group picture: 1. The shape of the gear sure has changed. 2. The shape of women hasn't.

The 14 jumps occurred on three separate days. This incident certainly reinforces the old adage: "Look before you leap."

As I've said several times before on this forum, the market decided this issue many years ago. Now, 98% of all the rigs we make are BOC throw-out. From what I know, you are about 5 times more likely to have a main total if you jump a pull-out. This means you are 5 times more likely to have a terminal reserve opening if you use a pull-out. And because pull-outs are harder to deploy completely outside the burble, you are going to have a lot of pilot chute hesitations until you get used to the system. These are just some of the reasons I recommend against pull-outs. While some people have used them successfully for years, in the big picture they are a much more dangerous system than a throw-out.