nigel99

Just started using an AXE bag from downward trend. Very happy with it and I've noticed deployments are much smoother. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

An immediate downside if it was black heatshrink is that it can hide structural issues with the lines. Clear heatshrink allows visual inspection. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

I don't know Elsinore specifically, but when I was jumping in the US (Skydive the Farm) there were a fair amount of up-jumpers who were very happy to do 3 or 4 way jumps with novices just for the fun of helping. Far more value can be got from those jumps than solos. US allows you onto FS jumps as soon as you have your A. As someone else mentioned, getting camera is invaluable. As a suggestion if you find another 1 or 2 lower jump number people, your coach might be willing to jump camera and engineer a dive and you can split the coach fee costs between those of you on the jump

Sorry your post is too long to quote, but answering if you've changed my mind on lifetimes. Firstly I'm an electronics engineer so I'm familiar with everything you mentioned and that is my point. IF someone is claiming (Cypres) that every 4 yr service they check and update the hardware if necessary then I can't justify an enforced end of life. With the cost of PCBs and the level of integration I would be unhappy if they are reworking PCBs rather than simply swapping them out. So if you can swap out a board at 8 yrs you can do it at 12. By the way I do advocate services and I am in the process of sending my Vigil back for a service at the moment. They are transparent with what they do (firmware version xx to yy) etc which I prefer. By the way I was surprised to see it is a free service, which is great but unexpected. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Affordability. When you look at the manufacturing cost of the equipment and the components that are included, there is no reason for the price to be as high as it is. I think a manufacturer who could put out a reliable, competitive AAD at a much lower price would take over the AAD market almost entirely. That or it would change the AAD market and drive down the prices of the other AADs. I disagree on costs. The material costs are irrelevant. The manufacturer needs to recover R&D costs that are going to be in the hundreds of thousands of $ and to do the job properly could easily be in excess of a million $. Then they need to keep viable and support the product over its life. For such a small market I don't think what we pay is out of line. The only reservation I have is compulsory 4 yr service program followed by a forced retirement. If you are genuinely updating the unit every cycle there is no justification to force retirement. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

I think you guys are missing the point. It's about limiting exposure. Nothing stopping a business from successfully licensing its product to a single client Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Great news and good luck. I completely agree having followed your previous posts. Modern signal processing with an appropriate processor and sensors has got to be an enormous leap forward in performance and safety. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

I would have thought any docile 220+ Pilot, Navigator, Saffire etc. Makes a lot of sense to keep it large and a good decision. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

I was taught to use the closing plate and stand on it with the washer underneath, and to use the pullup cord wrapped around the aluminum paddle. Works well. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Jeff, step back and look at the big picture and it is completely logical. Novice jumpers are closely supervised. Every step of the way they have more experienced jumpers monitoring and providing guidance. Intermediate jumpers are free of the constraint of forced supervision. They get to try new things, they are left to use their own judgement on assessing risks. While this is a good thing, it is a vulnerable stage to go through. There are still lots of firsts (whether this is the first 8 way, first angles jump, first higher performance canopy). Experienced jumpers have less firsts and the learning curve should have tapered off, naturally as you are comfortable and skilled at something your risks diminish. *Note, something that we see now is that jump number do NOT equate to experience. I have far more experience in formation skydiving than many people with 10 or 20 times my jump numbers, on the other hand I have 0 experience doing freestyle or tandems. For the most part experience only counts in the discipline that has been practiced - so 10 000 tandems doesn't equate to a good formation skydiver for example. Part of the problem we have now is that with canopy deaths, many people focus on freefall skills and simply land their parachute. Canopy progression is a passive activity and the fact they have 1000's of safe jumps is more accident than design. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Harness and both locations that I know of are faded to the point they aren't visible (normal panel and reserve riser). I am not worried as it is almost certainly out of service life (PA Talon) and I bought it for spares (handles, freeebag etc). But I am interested to see if there is a way for future reference. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Looking for idea's on reading a serial number or date of manufacture that is faded to the point that it isn't visible/legible on gear? Has anyone tried blacklight? Any tried and tested ideas welcome. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Is that really what drove the decision process? It seems to me that each safety device is unique with some overlap. RSL - Primary function is to PULL the reserve ripcord AAD - Primary function is to release the reserve pilot chute enabling the deployment sequence to proceed MARD -Primary function is to aid the extraction of the reserve freebag using the main and not relying on the reserve PC. All of them have their limitations and associated problems. BUT the risk/reward is strongly in their favour. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

I just bought the necessities from para gear and it came in at under $200. Didn't by a kit. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

My first ever rig was a battered old wonderhog. TSO system is seriously flawed that a Vector III is considered the 'same' from an approvals point of view. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

You understand that he is stating that the skyhook disconnected? How is that a 'save'. To the OP, read the manual or better yet have a play with one. Could be that it disconnected after it did it's job. If it didn't it is better to have a MARD that disconnects too early than too late. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

I can't remember where I got the figures from but for fall rate, 1lb of lead is roughly equal to 4 of body weight. So 4-6lb would be a reasonable guess for a starting point. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Yes the current manual. The previous loop in my rig was 7cm (stretched) and I shortened it to 6.5cm on last repack. I only just got my rating though and the 6.5cm is first pack job of my gear. 6.5 is stretched though. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Picture is worth a thousand words and should make it un-ambiguous

could you please post a copy of the email ? it doesn't matter what email he posts. To the OP, manufacturers cannot impose a service life via email and have absolutely no means to impose a service life retroactively. Since aerodyne has never imposed a service life before then there is none. The company can email you whatever bullshit they want but it doesn't matter. A date of 13 years sounds alot like someone sent in some ratty gear for some work/check out and were told it was unservicable Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

H is really good and one of my favourites. B also works well as it is more solid than H. A positive on B is that eye contact is easy which helps. Side note I dont like E because it often rotates. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

couple of friends just came 7th in worlds with Javs. I suspect more to do with fashion, seems you need a tiny micron to freefly ;) Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

First of all well done. Great to see someone properly researching gear and looking into service bulletins. Honestly I wouldn't buy a 25 year old harness. You depend on it to keep you alive. Look for something newer. Harnesses from around 2000 onwards have most of the newer safety features. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Do Fitz (I loved it). It has been nearly 4 years so things may have changed, but Skydive the Farm in Georgia was a great DZ for friendliness and getting jumps in. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

From memory when I was reading one of the manufacturers patents I got the impression that they had an accelerometer in use (I think it was Cypres, but not 100% certain). Ultimately though - the more you filter the data and ensure that you are not going to fire falsely, the more likely you are to delay the decision to fire. To be honest this whole debate is why I would be much more comfortable with having the software change logs published. Cypres admit that during their 4 and 8 yr services they update the hardware and software. This implies that they are 'tweaking' things along the way. Without visibility as a user, you have no idea what level of test user you are. I think Vigil are a bit more transparent on the software side of things. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.