davelepka

OK, then, this incident. I do agree with you that PD had a responsibility to do something to remedy the situation, and that living up to that responsibility should not be grounds for praise, it should just be. As far as what they did, thats a tricky one. The canopy had 280 jumps on it. Thats alot of usage for a canopy some dubbed a 'lemon'. I know if I jump a canopy that doens't treat me well three times, I might do two or three more jumps to investigate any possible solutions, but after that, I giving up on that canopy. If it was new, it's going back. If was borrowed, I'll never borrow it again. If I bought it used, hopefully those were the test jumps, and I'm not buying. If it was already paid for, I guess I would send it to the mfr for testing/inspection. So where the point that a canopy becomes used enough to not be held to the factory standards? We know that canopies and lines wear out with usage, so without a clear cut, and pre-determined 'warranty' period, how can you expect a certain set of actions from the factory? Even then, all you could do is a time factor, as jump numbers aren't accurately recorded. What do you say, 30 days? 180 days? I think the point here is that upon recieveing a new canopy (or one fresh from a repair or reline) you can expect a grace period, enough time for you to jump it, and make the determination if the performance is satisfactory, and I believe that all mfrs will honor that grace period. I see your point that if it was wrong from day one, they should own up to that, but, consider the jump numbers, and the effects those might have had on the canopy. How long did it take those jumps to accrew, and how was the canopy cared for during that peroid? From a business perspective, PD has to, at some point, call a sale final, and move on. Otherwise, the liability of every canopy they ship out, for an indeterminate amount of time, would be too much for the business to bear. In this case they made a great deal on a replacement, which I'm guessing effectively cancelled out at least all, if not more than, the profits they made selling the canopy in the first place. I'm not sure, in this case, that you can reasonably ask for any more.

OK then, this incident aside, I have extensive experience with the crew at PD, and have always been pleased with the service. On every occasion I have needed service of repair from PD, I was able to call ahead, reserve a slot in the line up, and overnight my canopy the day before. The work was completed, and I had my canopies back before the weekend. Thats not to mention the free T-shirts I always find pakced in with my canopies, the demos they have provided, prizes provided for canopy comps, prompt and complete technical advice, and the amazing reliability of their products over the years. I absolutely expect any company to adhere to ethical business practices. They have gone above and beyond for me consistantly over the last decade.

If you are jumping a Sabre 170, than the Sabre2 170 or 150 would represent a significant difference from what you have now. None of that addresses that fact that you have NOT taken your current canopy as far as you can. Skipping sizes is a bad idea. PD reccomends 500 jumps min for a Stiletto. Understand that becoming a good canopy pilot is a long and drawn out process, and is based 100% on jump numbers. Regardless of what you do with those jumps, one jump = one landing. Rushing things can slow your learning curve, or end it all together with a serious injury or worse.

Was anyone really ready for the X-brace canopies in general? When the first FX's came to the US, all that was around were Stilettos and Batwings. I think the releasing new canopies is based on several factors. I'm sure development is one of them, and from PD's track record, look at the Katana, and it's delayed release (the 135 and 150 are still MIA). The other biggie is the market conditions. PD is having no problems selling Velos, and winning comps with them, so why would they 'one up' themselves with a better wing. It makes better business sense to hold the Z braced canopy until the Velo runs out of steam, and then let the Z brace loose, and have it's day. It's all just speculation. The Z brace may be un-flyable, under a patent, or un-buildable for under $3000. Allthough, the $3000 thing should be a moot point in the next 6 to 8 years when that won't be too far off the cost of other canopies.

All canopies will stall ike that eventually. If the steering lines are too long for your arms to reach the stall point, you won't be able to stall the canopy, which was the case on your Sabre. It would seem that if you had long steering lines on every canopy, you wouldn't have to worry about stalling, which is what they do on student rigs. The trouble is that you may be cheating yourself out of some flare by putting it out of reach. OK on a giant student canopy, less Ok as the canopies get smaller. Ideally, you should have to really reach down waaay far, and hold it there for a moment to get a stall. This way, it won't hapen by accident, by you know that you can reach 99.9% of your flare. A rigger can assist you in adjusting your lower steering lines to set them to your situation. It may taek a jump or two to find the right setting. If youare using Spectra line, the shrinkage issues will throw this out of whack every 100 jumps or so, and you should re-check and adjust as needed.

And when you get to the ground, kick your self in the ass, and figure out how you let that happen. Proper gear maintenence, gear checks, and being protective of your handles is essential for safe skydiving. Some people will say that you can't always keep this from happening, but the way I see it, I haven't been kicked in the balls in a long time. Why? Becasue part of my daily life involves keeping the boys out of harms way. Treat your handles accordingly.

If you're not too worried about the looks, you can fashion a wedge out of wood or foam that will conform to the overhang and create a 'ramp' down the side of the helmet (maybe an inch or so). Then you can completely cover the wedge with gaffers tape. You could also make a sharkfin thats one flat-ish piece of aluminum that mounts to the side of the helmet, a couple inches below the flat top, and then bends out ward to form the vertical portion of the sharkfin. Does that make sense? There's really no reason is has to be a right angle bend mounted to a horizontal surface. what you really need is a vertical mounting surface, so you can just mount it to the side, and elimitate a snag hazzard. Keep in mind to keep the size of the sharkfin to a minnimum. Any corners hanging out on the top are also snag hazzards, and don't really need to be there any way. It only needs to be tall enough to mount the quick release. The flip side is that then maybe your camera is open to riser strikes or what ever. Take a look at the situation, and find the best balance between using the least amount of material, and protecting your camera. Building camera helmets and mounts is easy. Making it look good is the tricky part.

Make sure it's not a thumbscrew. That would be a super snag hazzard on the outside. Do what ever you can to snug the cam down until it's touching the top of the helmet too. Keeping the weight in close will reduce the leverage it has on your neck.

All you need is another still mount with a longer bottom section. Did you make the one thats on there now? If not, you should have, and with a hacksaw and a vice you can make one that will allow you to scoot the video cam over a bit as well to center up the weight. For that matter, if you want to eliminate the width of the quick release, why not figure out a way to flush mount or even recess it into the still cam mount to narrow the thing up?

Just wait nine years for 3-14-15. The math geeks will have a huge party. with cake, pie (no pun intended) and ice cream.

The biggest problems with hybrids is that the fall rates vary greatly from jump to jump. If ti build fast, and is solid, it's closer to a freefly jump. If it builds slow, and the hangers cork, it's back to belly speed. Separation from drift is all related to time in freefall, so the fall rate becomes an issue. The best slot is inbetween the last RW and first freefly group, so what ever happens they're good.

Long story short - Be ready to work all of your own handles, or think about golf or bowling. Really.

Good idea. Do it today. There's no money in skydiving, and a seemingly endless pool of idiots willing to pay 20k or 30k for a bike thats borderline un-ridable. As far as not jumping, fuck that. Take the some of that chopper money and buy yourself some new gear, take it to the DZ and fun jump and tunnel fly at your leisure.

OK, so as I previously stated, I e-renewed in Oct, my card was charged the next day, and I haven't seen a card or magazine since. This thread, with the upcoming warm weekend prompted me to call and see what was up. After explaining the problem, the lady on the phone said my membership was current, and she couldn't tell why I never got a card. Then, during a moment of silence, I could swear I heard a printer spool up and print something. When I asked what they were going to do about the card, she said that shr just printed one, and would mail it out that day. So maybe they do print them all the time.

As far as keeping with the changes, you'll be hard pressed to stay with a skysurfer on a random jump. The video you see from competitions is practiced routines, and the camera man knows what the next move is, and is makign adjustments berfore the move happens. Unless you have a routine, you will be 1/2 step behind the skysurfer. You would have to change fall rates faster than the skysurfer to stay with them. If the guy goes from a side spin to up on top of the board, you know to slow down when you see him getting up on the board, you would have to react, and slow down faster then he could to not be a touch low and playing catch up. With a giant board to throw around, you'd be hard pressed to react too much faster than he can change. It will improve with practice, but unless you can read his mind, you'll never be able to stay ahead of his changes. Once you have a routine down, it's a breeze, just go with dive flow.

I did that at the end of October. My credit card was charged the next day. I still have not seen a new card or an issue of Parachutist (I'm sure I'm not missing much). Seeing as I don't jump in the winter, it didn't bother me too much. I did call USPA 10 min ago, and they said my membership was current, and they would send me a card. Maybe they should send me $20 for extra slow processing.

I've never noticed any wrinkles on my rig. I tend to pack it, then put it on and jump it. I can tell you that the harness is comfortable, and everything has worked as expected, and is showing very little wear for several hundred jumps. I can also say that the ordering, build time, and general service was very good as well.

I wonder if they can ship one when they send me my new Katana 135?

Do other commerce operations require participants to sign a release of liability waiver? Every DZ I've ever been to does, and many of them are inclusive of other parties (land owners, AC owners, etc). I'm sure the city could just as easily be named on a liability waiver as they could on an insurance poilicy. For that matter, I don't think such a waiver has ever been beaten in court, while insurance compaines make a killing denying claims. What would the city do the case of an incident where the insurance comany refused to pay?

I'd love to see the $1M all-inclusive policies they have for their own DZ's. For that matter I'd love to look at their AC maintenence logs, repack cards for every student rig, and their books along with related tax forms for the last few years. You know what they say, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone".

I do applaud your bringing your viewpoint to light here, and your ability to make a sound argument, and maintain that argument without resorting to insults or off-color remarks. Like I said before, the opposing viewpoints are plain to see, and if there is a solution, it will be through legal means, and quite public at that. Time will tell who will be the victor.

What was the basis of the suit agaisnt Teledyne Continental? Was this a skydiving accident or a GZ accident. Skydiving doesn't being unitl you leave the AC, up until that point, it's GA. I've witnessed sveral first jump students who refuse to jump once they get in the door. Not a single one of them can claim to have been skydiving. If it was a GA accident, than you should watch that the toen doesn't get wind of their possible liability in the case of a GA accident from a flight originating from your local airport. Seriously though, if we did an audit of each and every business operating within the city limits I;m sure we could find several business's whose indistries have seen crippling lawsuits brought against them, who don't have sufficient coverage, and cannot protect the city. What do we do about them? My god, I can only imagine how many lawsuits have been brought against general contractors. What will the city do about that? Heavy equipment, cranes, and job sites left un-manned after hours pose significant risk to the populous. Better keep a lid on that. I propose that this insurance issue has come about not out of concern for liability, but as an impossible obstacle to block the permits for the DZ. If this is the case, time will tell if this legal, and if not, look for a signicant reduction services provided for your AC. If the FAA gets the federal funding pulled, the same 'good old boys' in city hall who are your allies now will quickly become your enemy as the airport will be perpetually at the bottom of the list when the city is doling out funds. I would hazzard to guess that they no concept of the costs invloved in maintaining an airport, and how far they are from being able to meet those costs without federal assistance.

The individual trying to open the DZ claims to have a first draft copy of a lease that does not include the insurance requirements in question. If the $1M requiremtns was boilerplate city regulation, why would they have not included it in the first draft? Additionally, I think that the facts regarding what a DZ operation constitutes have been 'spun' by those in opposition. I'd urge any of the city residents to visit one of the other skydiving centers in the area to see what actual daily operations entails. You'll find it to be quite different than it's being portrayed. On top of it all is the source of the information against the DZ. It's the owners of the other skydiving centers drawing their business from the same metro area. For all the bad things they have to say abotu DZ operations, you have to ask, why then, they are in that very business themselves? The obvious answer is that they are using whatever means possible to keep out competition for their customer base. Doesn't this fact at all give you cause to wonder about the validity of their claims? If you have any sense, it should. Additonally, skydivers are speaking from experiecne regarding the operations of a DZ. The local opposition is speaking from a speculative postion, with some experience from another center open over a decade ago. To truley have an informed opinion on the subject, you would need to contact other city administratos in similar sized metro areas, where a DZ is on opeeration, and ask them about the cost/benefit factors their city has experienced in hosting a DZ. What sort of problems have occurred as a result of the DZ? What costs ahev the city incurred? Conversley, what benefits have the reaped in direct tax dollars, and indirect inceom a a result of increased traffic though their city. Look, everyone is entitled to their viewpoint, but if you're going to make it public, you have to be preparred to ante up to the level of those you're debating with. So far you're position has mde several allegations about what could happen, but you have no actual instances to refernce, while the skydivers who insist that your concerns are unfounded, have a wide array of experienced to call on from DZ of varying sizes in cities of varyiing sizes. We can show you where and how it does work, with names and locations. Show us where and how it doesn't work, and they you may have something.

Wouldn't you agree that a solo jumper has a better chance of a PC bouncing off of them, and just going around them then a tandem? Even if the hanger was pulled up into the base guy, it seems likely that he would bounce off, and fall away from the hanger. A tandem has more snag hazzards between the two people, and if it gets around them it still has the drouge to deal with. Additionally, thanks to the drouge, the tandem pair is more 'fixed' in place, and might not be rolled to one side or the other as easily as a solo jumper. Really, think about it. You know how easily you push around a solo belly flyer. Especially if you tip them one way or the other. Now think about tandems in drouge fall. They're a pretty solid chunk of meat hanging there. It's like the diffeence between getting into a car crash with a compact, or with an SUV. If I had to run into either one, I'd take the smaller, lighter object. every time.

I had a demo main canopy sent to me from the mfg in the same condition. No links, no risers, canopy stuffed into a nylon sack. It looked as if they never even took it out of the sack from the last guy who demoed it. I did not buy a canopy from them.