billbooth

Vector #10,000 has leg straps (and backpad) which are padded with thick and luxurious, Canadian Bred, Female Mink. The hardware is all gold, and the large three rings each have a diamond set in them...A Skykitten rig if I've ever seen one. I guarantee it won't bruise your thighs, and even if it does, you won't care.

Actually, I have a few more laws, but I don't want to publish right now with the new Harry Potter book just out.

Nasty, nasty, Ron. Actually, by some miracle, I got to keep my house.

I knew somebody would bite. Booth Law #1 "The lower you pull, the longer your parachute will take to open, and the more likely it is to malfunction."

"Rules" usually come from fatalities...auto, airplane, or skydiving. Their purpose is to keep others from dying the same way. I would think that by now we have had quite enough canopy related fatalities for some firm rules to be in place. I'm glad to see the current trend to at least propose some common sense guildlines to stop the carnage. Now, if we can just get skydivers (who as a group hate rules) to obey them.

"The safer skydiving gear becomes, the more chances skydivers will take, in order to keep the fatality rate constant." Low hook turns, and high speed collisions on tiny canopies is just the latest example of this law in action. Without this new kind of risk taking, fatalities would be about half what they were 20 years ago. The sky over most drop zones nowadays is like a busy intersection with no stop signs or traffic lights...for that matter, no rules at all. I just got back from Roger Nelson's funeral and I'm pissed. Too many good people have lost their lives recently because canopy pilots won't follow even the most basic traffic rules while landing their nylon airplanes.

On the original hand deployed rig, the Wonderhog, the main pin protector flap was sewn to one side flap and velcroed shut to the other. This meant that even after the curved in was pulled, the main container was still held shut by the velcro. I chose bridle routing #1 to peel (instead of rip) open the velcro, thus making it last longer. I have stuck with bridle routing #1 on all my solo rigs simply for the sake of consistency. On the tandem Vector, we use a variation of bridle routing #2, because the curved pin is attached to a short lanyard instead of to the drogue bridle itself, basically because a drogue bridle is too thick to use routing # 1. Either routing works, but if you use #2 on your solo rig, people who pin check you will ask, "Is your bridle supposed to be routed this way?" to which you'll probably answer "yes", even if you've accidentally packed a pilot chute in tow...because you won't be quite sure what "routed this way" means, will you?

Roger was a real visionary and a great guy. I am going to miss him.

I thought this was settled 10 years ago, but I guess it's good to go over it again for the newbies. I have the patent on both the hand deploy and pullout sytems, so I am biased only by 30 years of observation. One was a good idea...One wasn't. 1. A BOC pilot chute, in a spandex pouch, is by far the most reliable deployment system for your main. Hard pulls and pilot chutes in tow are very, very rare, and floating handles are, by definition, impossible. Add to this the fact that you can't "throw" a pullout out of the burble (which extends well beyond your fingertips in a stable face to earth deployment position) because you never have ahold of the pilot chute itself. You end up "dropping" your pullout in the burble everytime, unless you contort your body (go slightly unstable) right at pilot chute release to "break-up" the burble. All successful pull-out jumpers have developed this talent, whether they realize it or not. But we all know that being "slightly unstable" at pull time is not a good idea with a small elliptical canopy. 2. We all also know that "out of sequence" deployments are not a good thing. (For instance: You don't want your canopy to get out of the bag before your lines unstow, do you?) Well, do you really want you main container open before your pilot chute is developing drag? A pullout deployment is out of sequence by definition. These first two reasons is why wing suit jumpers shy away from pullouts, but they apply equally to everybody. 3. Since both pullouts and BOC throwouts are in the same location, with similar (if not identical) handles, it hard to make the argument that a pullout is more secure to freefly with. 4. The lost pud (pullout handle) malfunction is very dangerous, because you "know" you can fix it if you just try a little longer. Many very experience jumpers have gone all the way into the ground working on that theory. 5. No one in their right mind would start a student out with a pullout. Why? Because everyone knows that they are simply harder to operate correctly. This means you must transition to pullout (probably with no instruction) and all transitions carry risks. (I know, if you start out with a ripcord, you have to transition to a hand deploy. But one transition is better than two, and main ripcord deployments are invaluable training for that inevitable first reserve ride.) 6. Over 95% of the rigs we sell are hand deploy, so it has become the defacto standard. With no real advantage to pullout, adhering to a standard is better for everybody because of problems caused by borrowed and used gear. I'm not saying it's impossible to jump a pullout safely. I know many jumpers who have done it for thousands of jumps. What I am saying is that it is harder, and therefore will result in more deployment problems than a BOC. You have enough to worry about on a skydive. Why add a pullout to the list?

When I finally got an electronic load cell pull tester (very expensive fish scale) that would record peak load, no matter quickly it was applied, I noticed that the faster the pull force is applied, the lower it needs to be to move the ripcord pin. I'd pack up a rig and pull the ripcord as fast as I could, then repack it and pull as slowly as possible. The pull force on the slow pull was always much higher, sometimes by a factor of two. The trouble with a normal spring fish scale is that you have to pull slowly to be able to get a reading, and no one I know pulls a ripcord slowly in an actual emergency. This is yet another good reason to have some slack in your ripcord system. That way, when the moving handle hits the ball swedge at the end of the cable, the pull force is applied quickly, resulting in a much lighter pull

Sorry. On an average day, an average Relative Workshop employee (including me) has to delete nearly 100 junk e-mails. Sometimes we delete a few we shouldn't by accident. (I still can't figure out why anyone would need BOTH a penis and breast enlargement...Of course, I don't live in California, either.) Please e-mail Bill(AT)relativeworkshop(DOT)com, and I'll make sure you get what you want...unless you require larger body parts, that is. Edited to help prevent Bill B from getting even more opportunities to enlarge his breasts.

Please call Relative Workshop for current delivery times for Vectors. The last time I asked, it was 6-8 weeks.

While you're flexing the ring attachment webbing on your 3-ring risers, don't forget the white locking loop. A "stiff" loop could be a much larger problem than stiff webbing, because it's further along in the mechanical advantage chain. Riser webbing does get a little stiff from just sitting around, but getting wet, especially with salt or dirty water, and then drying while still hooked up, can really stiffen things up, especially the white loop. So when you disassemble and flex your risers, don't do it with dirty, sweaty hands. Cadmium and nickel plating does rub off on riser webbing, but doesn't seem to be a problem. Don't forget to wipe down your yellow cutaway cables with a silicon lubricant sprayed on a paper towel. This is the most important thing you can do to ensure an easy cutaway.

Guys; I don't know about you, but I want my 3-rings to work EVERY time, in ANY malfunction situation. "Most of the time" just doesn't cut it. Reversed risers, soft housings, and all other "improvements" to the 3-ring lower reliability. Emergency systems are simply no place to cut corners. I cry every time I see a poorly made 3-ring, but there is nothing I can do about it, but tell you again, "There is one best way to make a 3-ring release system, and it doesn't cost a dime more to do it right. The plans are available from the Relative Workshop." How much is your life worth?

You camera guys are absolutely right. When the tandem RW rules were written, it was a different world. Tandem camera flying, as a profession, didn't yet exist. My answer was aimed at very inexperienced jumpers who want to follow friends or relatives out. Relative Workshop is trying hard to get out of the tandem regulation business, in favor of USPA, anyway. I think you photographers need to get together and form at least some basic guidelines for tandem photographers.

A few years ago, a Tandem Instructor allowed a jumper, with about twice as many jumps as you have, follow him out...only, he later told me, because the young jumper's mother was the passenger. The jumper was instructed to wait 3 seconds before exiting, not to dock, and only to watch from a distance. To make a long story short, the jumper collided with the tandem pair during opening and killed his own mother. A few years before, another jumper was killed when he docked on the passenger's leg, from behind, just as the TI released the drogue. This is one rule that has some very good reasons behind it. Please don't put Relative Workshop TI's on the spot by asking them to break the rules.

Nothing works when it is frozen solid...except an ice cube. Cheers!

In scenario #3, if the reserve bag is still in the container when the helmet release is activated, the reserve pilot chute, if it is free...or the combination of the reserve pilot chute and the malfunctioned main canopy (if they are entangled with each other), will deploy the reserve canopy just fine. You're only screwed if the reserve bag gets out of the container, AND wraps around the main, BEFORE you release your helmet. In other words, a whole lot of things have to go wrong, in a row, to actually kill you. I'd worry a lot more about getting run over by a drunk driver.

On a Skyhook equipped rig, if both your main risers are entangled with your camera helmet when you cutaway, your risers won't go anywhere, and your RSL won't open your reserve container. If only the RSL riser is entangled, the other riser will leave, but that won't open your reserve. If only the non-RSL riser is entangled, the RSL riser will leave and open your reserve container. The Skyhook will pull on the reserve bridle, throwing your pilot chute out into the windstream. The RSL riser will then stop traveling away from you, probably before the Skyhook pulls the reserve bag out of the container because of the long reserve bridle. The Skyhook will then release the reserve bridle, and hopefully allow the reserve pilot chute to deploy the reserve. I'm not saying this is a good scenario (no entangelment is), but it is not necessarily fatal. Guys, no device is perfect. The test is whether it saves more people than it kills. Only time will tell if the Skyhook is a good idea for camera jumpers. Any of you guys want to do test jumps for me under scenario # 3 above?

Actually, I think that if your rig gets dirty, you should simply buy a new rig. Right? Bill Booth

20 years ago, I seem to remember a 4-way team that all jumped gear someone had bounced on before. The theory was that the odds of two people bouncing on the same gear were astronomical. I wonder what happened to those guys.

I think the Skyhook and cameras are a good mix. Photographers are always worried about the reserve bridle tangleing with their cameras (and rightfully so). Over the years, I've watched videos of countless reserve deployments without the Skyhook, and quite often, the pilot chute or bridle "bounce" all over the place in the burble. There is absolutely none of this disorder in a Skyhook deployment. So, it would appear that the chance of an entanglement with a Skyhook installed would be a lot LESS. But, let's face it. We probably won't know anything for sure for 10 years or so, because reserves don't get used all that often.

I'll try to get the Skyhook video up this week or next. There were infinite details that we had to take care of (like labels, and instruction sheets, and making one size Skyhook set-up fit all the different size rigs that we make) before we were really ready to launch such a revolutionary new product. The video is impressive, and I didn't want to create too much demand until I was really ready to supply. (Almost EVERYBODY who sees the video wants a Skyhook on their rig, including me, by the way.)

The main problem doing a Mr. Bill tandem, with the "passenger" facing the Tandem Master, while wearing his own rig, is that if the passenger's rig accidentally opens, both people are dead. I wish you guys wouldn't do that. If both people face the same way, a passenger rig opening would probably not result in a deployment, and would therefore be survivable.

Jib is right. The Cypres put an end to any thoughts of a hand deployed reserve on sport systems. Actually, I originally designed the Vector to be a dual hand deployed rig, but got talked out of it. When I think back on it, I'm glad I didn't do it. When "stuff" really goes wrong, and you go into a panic, a ripcord is just simpler.