Divalent

I don't believe that the drogue is going anywhere other than with the wind stream as long as that's where you put it. "Throwing" it isn't going to put it any farther out. That said, I tend to agree with the agressieve placement at full arms reach, essentially the same thing. Less aggressive and it'll get pulled out of your hand, though I'd think that if the forces are enough to pull it out of your hand, that it's in good air anyway. It seems to me that this is similar to tossing your PC on a sport rig, and that what varies between a lazy toss and an agressive one not how far it goes out the side, but how long you are exposing the bridle between the PC and container to the relative wind. Compared to a rapid extension and release, a slow extension of your arm out to the side probably is going to allow more bridle to feed out into a longer "dancing" loop, and with a bit more time to snag or half hitch.

Hmm, I'm trying to figure out the logic of this refusal to do a "normal" pack job when the AAD will expire within 6-months. Some riggers here are essentially saying "Even though it has not expired, just throw it in the trash bin, as I won't let you use it for the remainder of it's life". And some are essentially saying: "I won't take responsibility for the reserve pack job beyond the point where the AAD is no longer functional, and so will force you to have your reserve repacked at that time." What exactly is bad about having an AAD that expires (so no longer will work?) in a rig? How does that affect the ability of the reserve to function? I mean, I have an AAD but there is no requirement that I actually turn it on for a jump. If I don't turn it on, is there any danger that my reserve won't work as well? Isn't an expired AAD just like having an unexpired AAD that isn't turned on? Honestly, it seems like some of you riggers are just using some technicality to be unreasonable hard asses. (And couldn't you at least offer to unthread the cutter from the loop without doing a full repack?) But I'm no rigger. So maybe you guys can explain how risky it is for the jumper to be jumping a rig with a non-functional AAD (as opposed to a rig without an AAD).

Or feet per second vs MPH? (163 MPH =~ 239 fps; or )

Yeah, but did you ever read the waiver and watch that video with the ZZ-Top guy? The topic is brought to their attention numerous times before they even strap on a harness. It could be added as a section to the waiver ( "I [agree | decline] to purchase the accident insurance policy").

A good idea. But consider also disability insurance. Even if a DZ makes nothing off of it, it would be a good thing to offer to customers. Recall the Oregon Supreme court decision that said a waiver was not enforceable for snow skiing. One of the factors that the court considered was the availability (or lack there of) for insurance the user could purchase to cover the risk of injury to help offset the risk they were assuming by agreeing to the waiver. A DZ might want to have this available for their customers, and to have it cheap enough that at least some people take advantage of it (because is no one does, the insurance company would stop offering it). I know a disability policy would be more subject to fraud claims (and so more expensive for that reason; plus more people survive with injury than end up dead), but in the case of a catastrophic injury, there will be a suit challenging the waiver, and if the injuried party at least had to option to purchase insurance, that would help the defense.

Sheeze, who is training and advising kids these day? It's missing the most important element of your head gear: a GoPro. IMO, you should sit down with your instructor and review your purchase decision. But if you are excited about embarrassing yourself wearing it at an actual dropzone ... well ... to each his/her own, I guess

See! And just a few hours ago people were laughing at the TX governor for deploying the TX National Guard to protect against this exact type of thing! Once again a republican foils the evil plans of our president!

Don't get me wrong: I do appreciate you trying to make an improved AAD. It would be *very* good to have an AAD won't ever fire in the plane, that takes into account falling rate in determining the activation point, considers the target altitude as the point where you have a fully opened canopy (as opposed to mere when the closing loop is cut), is able to detect when you activated your main, etc. It just that, for any new product/device, it is virtually certain that unanticipated situation and/or problems will arise; at the design, component, or software level, that will have to be addressed and worked out. That is the risk an early adopter of your device will face. Right now, for Vigil and Cypres their initial "defects" have been identified and corrected over the decades of use, and the somewhat common remaining risks have been (mostly?) identified. The weaknesses (it might not fire high enough) are known, and there are things you can do to minimize them (like, raising your firing altitude). If you produce such a device and get a bunch of them in use for millions of jumps over several years so that those rare situations get identified and corrected for your unit, then I might give it a chance. But as I see it, the benefits you hope to achieve are marginal beyond what the current generation AADs provide, and is countered by the risk of being the beta tester that finds out something unexpected about your new unit. Particular so it if the cost is the same as the other guys. BTW, I did some searching and the (third party) rental offers I've seen are on the order of $60 a month with a 12 month (minimum) lease, which strikes me as pretty poor deal. ($720 for a year? I can't imagine who would go this route). That might make it doable for someone that absolutely needs one and can't buy new, but an extremely poor investment over all. (Better to spend twice as much for a new Vigil, use for a year, then sell for almost what you paid for it. Or buy a used Cypres with some remaining life.) So I wouldn't count on the availability of that option offered by third parties to be a way to get your unit some overlooked market share. I do understand that selling (or leasing) it this way means you forgo the full upfront bolus of money, but over the life of the unit, you get the same (and perhaps more). And from the buyer's perspective, it somewhat reduces the risk that you cease to support the product (or go out of business) leaving them with an orphaned device.

Sorry for the full quote, but I did so because it mostly covers my view of this. I will be back in the market for an AAD in 3 years when my Cypres expires. Even if this new unit is on the market tomorrow, if similarly priced to the Cypres or Vigil, I will probably go with one of them (although will be keeping my eye on how the MARS unit fares). Mostly that's because, while I do like you thinking about doing it better, and think those features would make it a better unit in theory, by the time I'm back to buying one, even if you hit the market this year and do really good sales for 3 years, your units will have a mere fraction of the jumps that Cypres and Vigil have had over the last 15-20 years. Although your unit will have benefited some from their experience (e.g., those few unanticipated situations that came to light and that Cypres/Vigil addressed as time went on), your hardware and software will be v1.0 at best. The reality is that the vast majority of AAD's have never fired because the conditions were never met to do so; and that will be true for your unit as well. I understand how they work and their limitations, and for me the risk/benefit of a new theoretically better but less well field-tested (for reliability) unit over the long time players in the market comes out against your unit at this time. (I'll also note that those companies have been in business for a very long time; what are the odds that you will be around when a unit needs their 4-year service?) I will make a counter point to one item in the quote above: I do think cost of ownership is a big deal for those that do not currently jump with an AAD, as well as for many that do. Have you considered a marketing model where you just charge for the 4 year continuous service life? I bet something like a $600 up front cost (and perhaps a $50 deposit so it gets returned to you at the end of that 4 years (to be refurbished and resold (or re-leased) for another 4 years?)) would allow you to establish an immediate foothold in the market.

and as usual, completely bogus comparisons. Skydiving risk (and some others) is presented as the risk per one time participation (i.e., one jump, one scuba dive, etc), other activities as risk per lifetime participation (eg, formula one racing, boxing, jogging, etc).

Just as an aside: technically, payment in-kind, rather than in-cash, is still taxable income. Yeah, but they don't, for example, tax the pilot and crew of an airliner for the reasonable value of a flight from one place to another. If they are only giving you what they need to give you in order for you to do the job, its not taxable. Now if they gave you a free jump on another load to "pay" for your coaching duties on this load, then technically that would be taxable income.

Q: What's the difference between a catfish and a lawyer? A: One's a slimy scum-sucking bottom-dwelling scavenger; the other is a fish. Q: What do you get when you put 50 lawyers in a room with 50 lesbians? A: One hundred people who don't do dick. At the rate law schools are turning them out, by 2050 there will be more lawyers than humans. A doctor notices a sidewalk stand that says 'brains for sale.' He goes over to investigate and sees a sign that says 'Doctor brains $8.00 a pound’ and another sign that says ‘Paramedic brains $12.00 a pound, Nurses brains $30.00 a pound, truck driver $40.00 a pound and lawyers brains $90.00 a pound.’ So he asks the man behind the cashregister, "how come his brains are only worth 8.00 and a lawyer's worth 90.00?" The man replies, "do you know how many lawyers it takes to make a pound of brains?" Two lawyers are walking down the street, when a beautiful woman walks by. "Boy, I'd like to screw her," says one lawyer. "I agree," says the other. "But out of what?" Betty and Tim die in a car accident on the eve of their wedding. In Heaven, they ask St. Peter if they can still be married. "Well, let me find out if this is possible. Stay here and I will be right back." Six months pass and Peter returns. "Yes, we can do this for you." The couple asks, "Well, as we have spent so much time together waiting for your answer, we need to know that if things don't work out, is there a possibility that we can be divorced?" To which St. Peter answers, "It took me six months to find a priest up here -- how long do you think it will take me to find a lawyer?"

A better question is, what is the most likely thing to happen? What fraction of people who sign up for a FJC remain active in the sport even just to reach the several hundred jump level? Very few. If even half of the students I observed at the DZ I jump at over the last 4 years stuck with it, they'd be running 3 otters full time every weekend. (They don't.) So the odds are that, for any number of possible reasons, 3 years from now he won't be active in the sport. And if he took on debt, or blew his savings, up front hoping he's be one of small minority that keeps at it, the odds are that he will regret his decision. (And as others point out, it is not a lucrative career, and relative to coding software, a high risk of suffering an injury that prevents you from continuing that career).

IMO, probably not worth over thinking this. Pulling open a container when on the ground is not like what happens in the air. Mine seem to come out right at the end of line stretch, as seen in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtTbrdGW-dA. (A Wings container with tuck tab riser covers). I suspect its the momentum of the bag suddenly being accellerated when the lines are all played out that finally opens them.

USPA really should explicitly note in the relevant section of the SIM that this method does not work. I have also heard a number of instructors endorse this technique, and if it's been known for 15+ plus years that it doesn't work, perhaps something besides episodic DZ.com discussion threads is needed to stamp it out.

Just a random thought: isn't the bubble pressure-differential a function of (among other things) velocity? So that an AAD in the back of an otherwise stable belly flyer doing 190 mph at some altitude might think it's significantly higher than an AAD in the back of a belly flyer doing only 120 mph. And a random question: is the differential directly proportional to velocity, or to some power of the velocity (e.g., velocity squared)?

I think it's unlikely the student owned the AAD. More likely it belonged to who ever rented the rig to him.

Something I thought about 2 years ago after the Z-hills double fatality is how an AAD's triggering algorithm would handle unusual data. For example, where the jumper is tumbling, so that the sensor would be alternately in and out of the burble. Or where a person in a fast steep dive (so maybe AAD not so much in burble) decellerated and flattened out (so now falling slower, and AAD fully in burble). Or where one jumper is docked and tumbling with a non-responsive jumper trying to find a reserve handle. Would the AAD be able to make sense of things and still trigger at the right altitude, or would it need some time to adjust. (Given that going from out the burble to in the burble would appear to the AAD as if the person had suddenly accelerated *upwards*.) Sure wish we had the data from the AADs in that incident.

Psycho pack! (just do it when they ain't lookin'.) Seriously: it is virtually impossible to create a line-over when narrowing the pack job when all you are doing is folding it. (As opposed to stuffing/man-handling it.) Plus, you can peal open the pack after you flop it on the floor to check that the lines are still where they should be. (Cain't do that with the normal pro-pack method, as it's all underneath and out of view.)

I don't ski, but my son & son-in-law both do. This is true, they never actually sign anything. On the other hand, the OR Supreme Court ruling made no mention of the details of the waiver. Only the broad scope of it. Jerry Baumchen But the court did note that in the case they were considering, the person did sign a waiver (since he purchased a seasons pass, and so they got an actual signature). So this was not a case where the plaintiff was arguing they were unaware of what they signed. And the plaintiff was claiming that they were injured by ordinary negligence. Anyway, I looked at the opinion, and I while I think skydiving sits closer to the "enforce the waiver" side of things, I'm not so sure it is that much closer. From the last page of the opinion (foot note 21): Considering the tandem and student jumper side of this, for these 4 factors that the court said led them to conclude the waiver was uninforcable, I would guess that skydiving waivers would also be disfavored by factors 1, 2, and 4, but favored by #3. (For licensed jumpers, I think #4 swings over to favoring the waivers, except perhaps for the plane ride.) AFAIK, there isn't any insurance one could buy, although I'm not sure why not. I mean, I would think there could be money to be made by an insurance company selling a per jump policy for like $30-50 or so that could provide catastrophic coverage beyond what normal medical insurance would cover. (Perhaps coupled with a section in the waiver where the person affirms that they do carry medical insurance). Any insurance folks out there that think such a policy would be possible?

I suspect there is a connection. Many a fine relationship was ruined by trying to live together. It takes away all ability to have your own space, and forces both to confront aspects of the other that mostly are not a problem when you each have your own place. (And its not just romantic relationships that can get ruined by this: many close personal friendships can sour when one of them gets the bright idea that they should be roommates.)

And as a followup late 2014: it looks like Blutracker is dead. They say they will be carrying on, but they are offering refunds to anyone that contributed to their Indigogo fund. So (IMO), not a good sign that this product will every materialize. See https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/blutracker-long-range-bluetooth-gps-tracker-with-no-monthly-fees-water-resistant#activity

I think you need to sit down with a competent instructor and/or rigger to learn exactly how all the parts of your gear work. And to understand how that relates to EPs. (Preferably before you do another jump.)

Hey! Why all the hatin' on psycho packing? I agree a student should probably learn the traditional "pro pack", since more people will be able to help him and he is more likely to find better online instruction, etc. (And if chosing to psycho pack, it is helpful to have an 8 inch or so bridle extension.) But once you know how to pack the traditional way, the transition is not complicated. And there are advantages of psycho packing beyond the ease of getting the canopy folded up and in the bag. The main one (IMO) is that, when layed out on the floor, you really don't do anything that can disturb the position of the lines, slider, and nose. And because you rotate it before putting it down, you can very easily open it up and inspect things to be sure nothing got disturbed with the floor flop. (recheck the slider, confirm no line is crossing the nose, etc). After that, you are doing two simple folds and then a roll; nothing that risks, say, creating a line-over or letting the slider get out of position (as might happen if you aren't careful when folding the canopy under itself with the tradational pro pack.) I've done over 350 psycho packs and haven't yet had a problem.

I think you need to sit down with an instructor and review your EPs. (And preferably an instructor who doesn't suggest that deploying your reserved by pulling on the reserve cable or the RSL lanyard is a viable option.)