peek

OK, I just now did that.

That's about it. The rest was slow motion and repetitions to play while I talked.

I finally edited for brevity and made a file of the video I showed during my presentation at the 2003 Parachute Industry Association Symposium, called "Outrageous Pack Jobs and Canopy Control". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i16HryVyRaI (It sure looked a lot better on my computer, I guess YouTube leaves something to be desired.)

Yes! My Pioneer Titan had that. And "Red" at Flight Concepts mentioned this technique to me a while back when we were talking about hard openings, so he is thinking of it too. I think that if people started doing that again that we would see the number of "rogue" hard openings go down, (rogue meaning an occasional hard opening of an otherwise nice opening canopy). But I don't think that is going to happen, for a number of reasons.

I agree, that is a huge problem, and we may never get video of some of these things if it is related to a quick (hard) opening, because the jumper/videographer would not have time to look up! (The Tandem manufacturers however, may have some video or stills of some line slump or such from the days before they knew how to control it, because Tandems often had "outside" video.)

I've never heard that one before. I think it's nice.

Hello? Rob, is that you, or some old guy with Alzheimer's that has stolen your identity? Hee, hee, hee!. Maybe you meant Cary Peck?

N/A

Might be a repost, and it is a month old, but... http://biz.yahoo.com/wallstreet/071123/sb119577059712701370_id.html?.v=1 The accurate reporting of the decline in skydiving is interesting though.

Oh, no, the Packing Fairy? Just think, you could have gone for years without us knowing the secret life of , but you had to go and speak up. We've noticed that about her. Good for her. We need more instructors like that.

Advantage over Tandem, no Tandem instructor needed. Advantage over AFF, no AFF instructors needed. Advantage over IAD, no instability on short delays. It is an example of one of the innovative things Ted Strong has come up with. He was thinking of small drop zones that had plenty of S/L or IAD instructors but not AFF instructors. Now there are enough AFF instructors at most places. The problem with it was that it was too gear intensive, and people are not very willing anymore to deal with anything but the simplest gear configurations. (That's actually probably for the best because many skydivers are not willing to learn much about gear.)

Does being a pilot give you any kind of edge? I think yes, but perhaps not for your first few jumps, and not so much for the freefall part. For the freefall part you might be able to more easily recognize when you are tense and correct it, however, you don't have much time in freefall to recognize this. On later jumps where you are learning things like spotting (where to get out), how to act in a jump aircraft, etc., you will have a big advantage if your instructors know you and acknowledge your skill and knowledge as a pilot. Unfortunately some won't. I have had some pilots I've trained spotting very early on and doing a good job, but if I had waited until the training manual suggested they learn, they would not have advanced as quickly in this area. There is an old saying that I don't hear much any more, but is quite true. "On every jump there are 3 areas of learning: 1. In the plane, 2. In freefall, 3, Under canopy. You can learn something in each area every jump, and if you don't do so well in one area, you have still learned in the other areas." Try to relate this to learning to fly an airplane and it will help.

I don't know what that smiley means so assuming it isn't a rhetorical question, the answer is, "where you put your hand down in between the cells and straighten them out."

It was called that a while back because the name "PRO pack" did not exist. Not many people did a "trash pack" because it implied a poorly done pack job. But lo and behold, as soon as it was named "PRO pack" it became popular! (Marketing.) At this point in time I would say that a PRO pack is somewhat neater because the cells are flaked. I believe most people simply shook the canopy when it was a trash pack. But they are very close indeed.

http://www.pcprg.com/baro.htm

Maybe I'm dense about this or something, but when I see that a post or thread has been moved to another forum, I can't tell which forum it was moved "from" and which one it was moved "to", because the thread seems to be in both places.

I just want to make sure that people don't think that a slider that is an inch or 2 larger will make any difference in opening. You might have seen this before: http://www.pcprg.com/hardop.htm

I just measured a PD slider using both methods. Side to side the measurements were the same, front to back the middle of the slider was 1/2 inch longer. For both measurements I used the same tension. So what's up do you think? :) By the way, how much bigger was the "bigger" slider you got?

Who told you to measure it like that?

Update: I got the Neuman winter gloves from Para Gear, Item G1121, $46. They fit my fingers very well and have very good tactile feel to them. However, I really liked the long knitted cuffs on my old gloves, which the Neumans do not have. I tried them once when it was definitely too cold for my "summer" gloves. Freefall from 6500 feet, and using my small canopy for about a 2 minute canopy ride. My fingers did not get cold, so I can say they are very promising. I may get back to you when I have done a Tandem when it is really cold.

Peter, the graph sure looks familiar to me of course! Who knows how much or little filtering they did for those plots. We assume they are filtered and unfiltered, but unfiltered pressure sensor data usually looks much more ragged, so perhaps they added a slight bit of filtering just to make the graph look reasonable. It does, but as far as what I have heard, the AAD manufacturers wanted it between the main and reserve for protection, and just dealt with the pressure issues resulting from that.

Thanks for pointing out that link. I just got off the phone with Don and he told me that a skydiver (whose name he did not catch) came to the picnic just to show his support because of what Don has done for skydivers at the Convention all these years. The skydiver recalled to Don the "biplane story". The owner of the N3N biplane, Bud Fuchs, had no insurance on the inverted biplane jumps and was getting nervous about flying it. So Don "bought it" from Bud by writing a check for the full value. Since I knew Bud because I was his parachute rigger, I held the check and the paperwork for both of them for the entire week, and at the end of the week Don got his check back. Damn, the things we did to make stuff happen at the Convention.

to popsjumper: So are you talking and 360's or something slightly greater than 90? I tell FJC students to turn proportional to the need, meaning that if they notice an obstacle very late, not to crank a big turn, but to turn just enough to avoid it. to everyone: Any altitudes listed for patterns and "no turns below" type altitudes are "rules of thumb". People seem to like making them hard and fast rules, and that drives ME crazy. Instructors need to use judgment. Instructors need to teach judgment. It is perfectly acceptable to tell a really lightweight student under a large parachute that they may make (certain types of) turns lower. And if you explain why then they will realize this is because of their size, and not go around telling other heavier students that they should do this. to everyone: Go jump a lightly loaded canopy and try to fly a pattern at the altitudes suggested by some manual. It hasn't worked very well for me the times I tried it.

Ed V. in the newsgroup sci.electronics.design on 11/16/07 after having some really bad software issues: "If you keep the gin in the freezer and pop a couple olives in your mouth you can skip those tedious shaker-to-glass-to-mouth steps." I'm sure you all can come up with some equivalent gems....

Good info, thank you. You know, if this is a problem nowdays you would think that the government would create some public safety ads for TV. They do that for a lot of things, and it would only take a 30 second spot once in a while to get the word out. I must say that when you are the only car between a red light and the ambulance in back of you with the lights/and or/siren on, it is difficult to not think that you are supposed to go through the red light to make way. Especially when the driver is manipulating the siren control to cause that change in siren operation that means "I'm honking the horn, get out of the way". One of the most frustrating thing I experienced was when an ambulance was behind me on a crowded street and I was slowly approaching an intersection in the left lane in preparation to stop behind traffic. I must have had the music on loud enough to miss the siren, (or maybe it was not on). The ambulance got so close that I could no longer see the lights in my peripheral vision and was slow to identify it and get out of the way. By the time I moved to the right, the ambulance started to pass me on the right and there was a conflict. The urgency seemed odd to me because after it passed me there was a lot of traffic 100 feet ahead that could not quickly move.