billbooth

Actually, you got me. Type 17 risers usually don't last 1,000 jumps. But if they did, I'd bet the Tru-Lock toggles would probably still be working fine.

There is no elastic used on Relative Workshop's Tru-Lock toggle system. Elastic wears out, just like Velcro does, and therefore can't be used as part of a toggle system designed to hold as firmly on jump # 1,000 as on jump # 1. There are two tape loops as part of the line stowage system, but they are not elastic. A word of advice: Improperly stowed, or non-stowed excess brake line contributed to 3 fatalities that I know about last year. So please...Don't jump a toggle system with no provision for brake line stowage.

You could always tell an authentic Wonderhog by the "Stash" hairs all over it, right out of the box. (Pam's sheepdog liked to sleep on the new rigs.)

Hi Pam. Long time - No see. Bill

Buzz; I didn't try and hide my daughters age from anyone. Before I got her out of school and flew her the 400 miles to Carolina Sky Sports, I asked the DZO Paul Fayard if it was OK. Both Paul and his wife were aware that Katie was 17 and still gave their permission. Then, on the very morning of the jump, we were told that Katie couldn't make the jump because she didn't have a "D" license (an unknown to me demo jump insurance requirement). Katie, as you might expect, was heartbroken. I then asked if that requirement was waiverable. I was told it was, and was granted one "on the spot" by the USPA board members present...for which both Katie and I thanked them profusely. All this happened as we were suiting up for the dive. Katie's age simply did not come up, and I frankly didn't fully understand, or for that matter even care which particular rule was being waivered, as long as Katie could jump. I guess I assumed that Katie's age was known by all involved, since I had made no attempt to hide it, and she doesn't even look 16 to start with. I guess I was wrong. The Demo in question was into the 100 th anniversary of the Wright Brother's first flight, at Kitty Hawk. I doubted they would have put off the celebration for three months until Katie turned 18. I decided that this was a special, time sensitive, occasion that my aviation buff daughter would never forget. It was simply a gift I had to give her. So I issued an exemption to Relative Workshop's rule. I would have done the same for any experience tandem instructor parent who wanted to jump their 17 year old into such a momentous event. But guys...all of this has nothing whatever to do with DZ's, in the US, taking up paying passengers without valid waivers. I have nothing against children jumping tandem. I have taken many myself, IN OTHER COUNTRIES. My problem is with the US legal system which makes large scale jumping of whuffo children a truly stupid enterprise for all of us. Katie has told me that this jump was one of the peak experiences of her life (including her first tandem jump at age 12 into the North Pole). While I don't really believe in fate, I felt on that jump over the Wright Brother's Memorial, that this is why I had developed tandem in the first place...so I could be there, in freefall, at that moment, with my daughter. If you guys can't give me that, then to hell with you.

Users of Relative Workshop Tandem equipment: Please be aware that this change in the BSR's does not free you from your contactual responsibility not to allow anyone "below the age of majority" to use our tandem equipment. It is paragraph 11 in your User Agreement. Waivers are available from Relative Workshop for extraordinary circumstances.

The Vortex and Catapult systems are identical, except that on the catapult, the secondary pilot chute is attached to the primary bridal so as to form the letter "Y". On the Vortex (never marketed) the primary bridle passes through the center of the secondary pilot chute. There is no difference in function, except that the Vortex design is less likely to entangle with an un-released main or horse shoe malfunction. Both systems are a bad idea for reasons I have discussed here before.

The Vector "soft" reserve handle has had a metal tube inside to "stiffen" it up, and to prevent tuck unders, from day one. It's the only way I agree to make one. No matter how you slice it, a soft reserve handle will be harder to locate, identify, and pull than a metal "D" handle. If you jump one, especially with gloves, please add at least 500 feet to your "hard deck"...and have a good reason, like a lot of freefly RW jumps. Soft reserve handles are simply not a good idea for inexperienced jumpers, simply as a "fashion" statement.

Vector Tandem reserves have continuous lines also. It is bulkier, but stronger. Also, if you break one "lower" line, you only lose the support of one line, not 2, as with cascaded canopies. The brake lines are continuous too, for the same reason. I didn't want to sacrifice safety for less bulk on "public transportation".

In my tests, a horse shoed freebag bridle pulls only about one pound at the freebag end. Pockets on the bridle don't pull much more, and certainly not enough to pull a freebag out of a modern container. This is good, because the last thing you want during a pilot chute hesitation (common on internal spring-loaded pilot chute systems) is for your bridle to pull your bag out of the container and above the hesitating pilot chute. Reserve totals are rarely fun.

Bee's wax would simply make the type IIIa loop stiff. (I chose this line in the first place because it is so supple.) There would be two results: 1. It would take more force to pull the cutaway cable through the loop. 2. But actually, that wouldn't matter, because the "treated" loop would probably be so stiff that, even if you could pull out the yellow cable, it would hold the smallest ring down like a fish hook. I my experience. riser loop don't fray without some very good reason. Find and fix the reason. Risers don't last forever. Please replace them before they break.

I got the message. I'll look into it tomorrow. Once again I'm glad parachutes are more reliable than computers...If not, we'd all be long dead.

Opinion #1 is correct. It's death. Contact Strong Enterprises for hard housings. They made the rig.

During the first year of tandem (pre-drogue) we had a rather difficult time keeping our mains in one piece on 170 mph tandem terminal openings. The joke going around at the time was that the real purpose of a tandem main was to slow you down enough so that you didn't blow up your reserve too. We kept playing with line trim, brake setting, slider size and shape, and crossporting, until we got our mains to open "softly", even at tandem terminal (no drogue). After all, you don't have a drogue on your reserve, do you? The 360 Vector Tandem Reserve we use today is the same canopy as our "perfected" 360 main from 20 years ago, which had about 10,000 jumps put on it as a main, before we went to the drogue. This must make it the most thoroughly tested reserve ever marketed. It is designed to open in stages, slowing you down a little at a time, so that the faster you are going, the longer it takes to open. That is one of the main reasons I set minimum tandem main opening altitude at 4,500 feet, and why tandem AAD's are set to open at about 2,000 feet. I myself have over 250 tandem terminal openings on the canopy as a main, and it never hurt me (well, not very much anyway). I remember doing five, 170 mph openings on the canopy in one day. Try that on your average sport reserve. The design has worked out very well. In 20+ years I don't think we have ever had one significantly damaged in actual use. By the way, the 360 was was the first tandem reserve the FAA approved, and was TSO'd under a special exemption to TSO c-23 B. The tests I devised for it then, are more stringent than those for a tandem reserve today, under either TSO "D" or the new "E".

There is no substitute for proper training. However, not everyone is properly trained...and brain farts do occur. That's why AAD's save lives. The old RSL designs simply had too many problems for me to recommend them to anyone but tandem and student jumpers. But times have changed. Pocket rocket canopies spin so violently, and eat up so much altitude during malfunctions, that even when you pull at 2,000 feet, you might now have enough altitude to deal with a malfunction without an RSL, especially if you have a soft reserve handle. USPA records show that 25 people have died after cutting away, and not pulling their reserves in time, in the last ten years alone. And please remember that an AAD might not have time to function in a low breakaway situation.

Determining if your pilot chute is the right size for the first time is really quite easy. Have someone video one of your deployments from a distance and slightly below. If the time it takes from main pilot chute release, to line stretch (canopy out of bag) is less than 0.4 seconds, then your pilot chute is too big. If it takes longer than 0.8 seconds, your pilot chute is too small, out of trim, improperly constructed, or you're stowing your lines way too tight. Once you know what a correctly timed deployment should "feel like", your will automatically know on future jumps if your pilot chute is working properly.

Please note that the above letter about RSL's from the Relative Workshop was prior to the introduction of the Skyhook RSL. The Skyhook was designed to remove most, if not all of the "problems" associated with conventional RSL's. The Colins' Lanyard solves the problem of the RSL riser releasing first, and the Skyhook solves the pilot chute entrapment problem and the unstable deployment problem. The Relative Workshop now recommends Skyhook RSL's to all customers, regardless of experience level. Jumpers who do a lot of CReW might be the only exception. However, no device is perfect, and everyone's best course of action is not to get so low that you need an RSL in the first place. Just remember...an RSL is sort of like a gun. If you really need it, but don't have it, you'll never need it again.

Please note that the above letter about RSL's from the Relative Workshop was prior to the introduction of the Skyhook RSL. The Skyhook was designed to remove most, if not all of the "problems" associated with conventional RSL's. The Relative Workshop now recommends Skyhook RSL's to all customers, regardless of experience level. Jumpers who do a lot of CReW might be the only exception. However, no device is perfect, and everyone's best course of action is not to get so low that you need an RSL in the first place. Just remember...an RSL is sort of like a gun. If you really need it, but don't have it, you'll never need it again.

1. No soft housings 2. Housings should stretch, but not compress. 3. Clean breakaway cables often with silicone lubricant. 4. Make sure white closing loop is long enough. 5. Make sure riser housings (if installed) have capped upper ends. 6. Make sure riser rings are properly aligned. Pictures are available at [www.relativeworkshop.com].

If the 3-ring release was as reliable as the average computer, we'd all be dead!

Please send letters for Relative Workshop - 1645 Lexington Ave. DeLand, Fla. 32724, to Mark, Egon, or yours truly. E-mails: Mark, Egon, or Bill@relativeworkshop.com. Someone please make it "clicky". I'm such a klutz on the computer. Thanks

In the last 15 months, Relative Workshop has shipped around 700 rigs with Skyhook RSL's installed. Yet, we have only a dozen or so reports from jumpers who have used the system in actual emergencies, and most of these are just verbal. I think there must be more, and I am hungry for data. (What size main? What kind of malfunction? How fast were you spinning? Did your reserve have any line twists? Did your freebag stay with your main? Altitude loss? Opening shock? etc.) So, if you have used your Skyhook, please let me know. A nice written report to RWS might even get you a T-shirt (maybe even a new one).

Sorry Mike. I have no financial interest in either system myself. I also have no interest in starting a fight. I was asked my opinion, and gave it. I put a lot of time and test jumps into dual reserve pilot chute systems. I wanted it to work out, but it just didn't. This doesn't mean I've given up on the idea. It's a good idea. I just means I haven't found a way around the objections I stated above, and therefore believe the risk outweighs the gain. The Skyhook was a similar project. I started, ran into dead ends, and re-started work on the Skyhook three separate times over a 15 year period, before I was finally happy with the design...And we won't know the real value of the Skyhook until hundreds of actual reserve deployments have taken place with the system, which will take years. The hand deployed pilot chute system took 20 years of constant improvements to get where it is today...and look at what we went through with AAD's before the Cypres was finally designed. The point is that all of these systems have benefits and risks, and only years of use by real live skydivers will tell the tale. I sincerely hope that I am wrong about the Catapult.

I know packing is very important on tandem systems. Every tandem master has at least 500 jumps, and because of the drogue, everybody is in roughly the same body position on deployment. Yet some DZ's go thousands of jumps between malfunctions and others can't seem to go 200 between chops. Same equipment...same body position...wildly different malfunction rates. What else can it be but packing?

I actually don't know. I usually get reports of problems on my gear, but often do not hear about problems on other gear. Any way, horseshoe malfunctions, on main or reserve parachutes, are so rare, and there are so few Catapult systems out there, that the chances of anything happening, positive or negative are very slight. There are some situations where that second reserve pilot chute will help you, and some where it will kill you. I just happen to believe that the "kill" situations way outnumber the "save" situations. Anyway, it doesn't really matter if you get killed by a rare, or a common malfunction does it?...You're still just as dead.