gowlerk 2,245 #1 December 19, 2009 I'm interested in getting a rigger A rating sometime this winter and I'm wondering if anyone hanging out here knows of any upcoming courses. gowlerkAlways remember the brave children who died defending your right to bear arms. Freedom is not free. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Andrewwhyte 1 #2 December 19, 2009 Some instructors want to teach you from a "blank slate" but others expect you to have studied under a current rigger. Since you live a long way from any instructor your best bet is to get your ten practice packs in before you even find a course. That way the fly-in guy with a limited schedule can hope to finish in a reasonable window. Make sure you learn from someone who will teach you by the book though, Al MacDonald in particular will make your life miserable if he detects the slightest tendency toward innovation in a rigging candidate. If you really want a course this winter the best way is to organize the candidates yourself and then find the RI. Good luck. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
gowlerk 2,245 #3 December 19, 2009 Actually, I was thinking more about me traveling. I'm hoping to find a course being offered that runs for a week or two all at once, not a series of weekends. I may end up just going to Eloy for Sandy Reid's course, but that runs 3 weeks and is a little longer than I'd like. There may be no one in Canada that does it this way, but I'm looking. Thanks for you input. gowlerkAlways remember the brave children who died defending your right to bear arms. Freedom is not free. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
pbwing 0 #4 December 19, 2009 Try posting on www.cspa.ca/forum You might have some luck on there as well. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
gowlerk 2,245 #5 December 19, 2009 I looked at the CSPA forum. It appears to be nearly dead. Not like the old lively Chat list. And the web site doesn't even list the members of the TS&C. I was thinking of contacting the chair, but I don't even know who the chair is anymore. Probably still Barry! I think most of the Canadian community has migrated here.Always remember the brave children who died defending your right to bear arms. Freedom is not free. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Armour666 0 #6 December 20, 2009 Technical Safety Committee : tsc@cspa.caSO this one time at band camp..... "Of all the things I've lost I miss my mind the most." Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
riggerrob 643 #7 December 20, 2009 At risk of violating dz.com rules about advertising, try contacting me directly. I might know about a CSPA Rigger A Course the first week of February 2010 ... Hint1 Hint! Hint! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
skyfreek 1 #8 December 20, 2009 go for your faa senior rigger ticket. simon wade from skydiving services. hes in boulder city, just outside of vegas. runs a nice training course in a great shop. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
riggerrob 643 #9 December 21, 2009 At risk of offending American pride ...... ..... The FAA Senior Rigger rating is nice, but candidates waste a lot of time learning skills that they plan on forgetting the day after the exam. The majority of FAA Senior Riggers only earn the rating to pack reserves and maybe do a little hand sewing. I have met dozens of FAA Senior Riggers who never packed a round reserve or (machine) sewed a patch since they earned the rating. What is the logic behind cramming young riggers heads with far more knowledge than they will ever use or even care about? Five years later - if anyone asks them to pack a round reserve - they will need to re-train. The Canadian system is better because it allows candidates to pick and chose which ratings they want to train for. The vast majority - of Canadian Rigger A candidates - only care about packing square reserves into one-pin sport containers and half of them will never buy a sewing machine. Rob Warner Canadian Rigger Examiner FAA Master Rigger Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Beatnik 2 #10 December 21, 2009 I don't fully agree with you rob. With the Canadian system there is a ton of stuff you have to do for it, more than the FAA rating. I guess the Canadian system is nice if you want to just pack for yourself but if you plan on being a rigger and pack for others it is a pain. The reason for this is the amount of endorsements you need to pack the different rigs and types. I know I went through them all and right now am in Rigger B training. Personally, I believe that if you follow a manual and understand how to pack, you should be able to pack anything. I don't do many square reserve packjobs a year but I do close to a hundred round packs. Does that mean I need to be retrained to pack squares? Shit I can still pack Racers better than most of the riggers around. Those are just my feelings since I have went through every endorsement and pretty much all the training CSPA has and sometime within the next year, I will have went through all the training. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
hackish 8 #11 December 28, 2009 I went through Rob's course. There was a lot of vintage stuff that we won't see in the field unless our initials are J.W. For me it was valuable to see how we've arrived at present designs and to see what some of the problems were in the past. I think most people out there really don't need to be able to pack a round reserve. At some point I'll probably earn my round rating just out of interest but nobody is going to ask me if I can pack their round reserve. -Michael Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Beatnik 2 #12 December 28, 2009 The vintage stuff appears in all the courses. It is part of it. The displays are up to the rigger instructor. Each one is going to have something different. But the basics of the course are all the same. The vintage stuff will probably never show its face to most riggers. I have seen some of the more unique models out there but a good understanding of parachutes of any shape or vintage can help you understand a lot about things that you encounter on a regular basis. I never took the course through Rob. So I don't know what his courses are like. I went through another person and I personally would only go through them for many reasons some personal. There was only two people that ended up getting their ratings at the end of the course and that is typically the way it is. If everyone is passes a rigger's course something to me is up because historically that hasn't happened with CSPA's rigger courses. There are too many people figure it is like other courses were you can just show up, do the course and get the rating. There is a lot of work and not everyone will get it all done. You never know when someone could come out and ask for a round repack. It is more and more less likely to happen but they still do happen. If you have the rating and people know about you, there is usually work that follows. That has been my experience anyways. I have been thinking about people doing this rigging courses a lot and I think that there are a good number of people that enter them and don't fully understand what it is about because they haven't done the prerequisites or any apprenticing under a rigger before hand. I think people should actually want to become a rigger and not do it because they feel they should. Just my thoughts. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
wolfriverjoe 1,523 #13 December 28, 2009 Quote...You never know when someone could come out and ask for a round repack. It is more and more less likely to happen but they still do happen... Don't forget that a lot of pilot rigs/emergency bailout rigs are still rounds. The 2 pilot rigs at my DZ are Softies (rounds). One of the other riggers in this area (Northeast Wisconsin, near Oshkosh) does more bailout rounds than sport skydiving squares."There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
riggerrob 643 #14 December 28, 2009 Agreed. The vast majority of Pilot Emergency Parachutes contain round canopies. This is partly because pilots are cheap and arrogant. By cheap,I mean my customer who blew $300,000 on a T-28D, then pleaded poverty over replacing the faded Para-Cushions that came with it. I eventually compromised by buying new Pop-Tops at the Strong factory and manufacturing the rest of the parts myself. Mind you, that deal turned into such a nasty political row that I will NEVER buy parts from SE again. Note: SE is innocent of this foolishness, but a third party tried to get some political mileage out of the deal! By arrogant, I mean pilots who never want to consider that they might be less than perfect pilots. The third factor is that many pilots decided thirty years ago that round engines (radials) and round guages and round tail wheels and round parachutes were the best and don't waste your time trying to tell them anything new! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
riggerrob 643 #15 December 28, 2009 "QuoteThe vintage stuff appears in all the courses. It is part of it. The displays are up to the rigger instructor. Each one is going to have something different. But the basics of the course are all the same. The vintage stuff will probably never show its face to most riggers. ... I never took the course through Rob. So I don't know what his courses are like. ..." ...................................................................... Which is why my Rigger A Course always start with:"How many of you want to get signed off to pack round reserves? None? Then I will only teach you enough about round canopies to pass the written exam." I tell them that sales of round reserves collapsed in the late 1980s because of acid mesh and there is not much point them spending $300 on extra tools that they will never need. Even then many candidates grumble about wasting time on obsolete material. That is the same reason I have written a course outline for a course on Pilot Emergency Parachutes. The PEP course starts with a review of round reserves, because they have probably forgotten everything about rounds. I will probably teach my first PEP course in February 2010. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites Beatnik 2 #16 December 28, 2009 QuoteWhich is why my Rigger A Course always start with:"How many of you want to get signed off to pack round reserves? None? Then I will only teach you enough about round canopies to pass the written exam." I think that they should have more knowledge than enough to pass an exam. Not relating this to your courses but there are a ton of riggers out there that think they know what they are talking about when it comes to parachutes because they are a rigger. Just because they have a rating doesn't mean crap. I remember having a conversation with a master rigger who was telling me that rounds were unsafe and they should be banned. I told him he doesn't know what he is talking about and that his rating doesn't make him an expert. I think people should be trained to be able to pack anything. They will be much better off. Round reserves may have collapsed in the late 1980's for the sport market but I don't think it was because if acid mesh. I think it was more because of the natural evolution of gear and that is the way it was going to go. I am not sure of the $300 in extra tools to pack them. I can't think of what would cost that much to pack only rounds. A tension board and a line separator doesn't come close to that. I use both of those things for both rounds and squares. Not that I use a tension board with squares but it does keep the risers nice and straight. Candidates for any course are going to grumble about the course material and that will not change. I think it is more that they don't understand and not think there is any value to it. My personal thoughts are if a rigger wants to shut down their mind to learning so early on, I can't imagine how they are going to become good riggers. The PEP course is your idea for it. CSPA doesn't have anything like that. Emergency rigs are a rating and involves a practical test. They should have the knowledge in the first place how to pack parachutes of different types right from the beginning IMO. If they know how to read a manual and follow it they should be able to show that they can pack a rig. I personally don't think it is necessary for a course. To me I think it sounds more like a way to generate revenue and I am not opposed to you doing that cause you are the one signing off their ticket. I have been debating about getting my rigging instructor rating for a while now. But I know with me, the course would take a while to do and they would receive a lot of training more than a week like most of the rigger courses I have seen and heard of. Just from the historical trends I doubt everyone would be passing like I have seen some courses been able to somehow produce. Most CSPA rigger courses from when it started back with the TTSC only had about 10% - 25% of the candidates actually finishing and getting their rating. Some of the courses out there make me wonder how good they are when they produce 90+% of the candidates getting their ratings. Again nothing against your courses as I have no first hand knowledge about them or how they are structured. I just know what I have seen with riggers out there in Canada and am really surprised that some have got their ticket. I know the way I would structure and teach my course since I have an outline for it. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites riggerrob 643 #17 December 29, 2009 The challenge - when planing any course - is breaking down material to "must knows," "should knows" and "could knows." Students can only absorb a finite amount of knowledge during a course. If you overload rigger apprentices with too many "could knows" too early in the course, they will feel over-loaded and will shut down. Which is why I prefer to teach rigger apprentices a few packing methods and have them practice until those methods start to burn in to longer term memory. For example: I recently told a rigger apprentice that we would start by learning how to pack Vectors and Sidewinders and we were going to continue practicing packing Sidewinders until he started to develop a rhythm/habits/pattern. After he developed a pattern to packing Sidewinders, then we would move on to packing Javelins. Once he started to get graceful at packing Javelins, we would pack a few Mirages, etc. That is why 95 percent of my Rigger A candidates pass the written exam on the first try and a good 80 percent pass their packing tests on the last day of the course. What happens after the course is a mystery. All students forget some material the first few days after the course. What happens in the long run depends upon the rigger's personality. Sadly, some riggers will "peak" that last day of the course and that their best days are soon behind them. The longer since their course, the more they have forgotten. OTOH Curious riggers will continuously study and practice so that they know more a year after the course than when they graduated. Curious Rigger As get recommended for Rigger B (FAA Master Rigger) training two or three years after their first course. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites riggerrob 643 #18 December 29, 2009 " ... Round reserves may have collapsed in the late 1980's for the sport market but I don't think it was because if acid mesh. I think it was more because of the natural evolution of gear and that is the way it was going to go. I am not sure of the $300 in extra tools to pack them. I can't think of what would cost that much to pack only rounds. ..." ................................................................................................... We are just going to have to be gentlemen and agree to disagree on this subject. I earned my CSPA Rigger A rating in 1984 and worked all through the acid mesh era. I believe that methods for re-certifying acidic mesh were - at best - stop-gap measures to quickly return the fleet of suspect round reserves to the sky. Every time you pull-test fabric you weaken it a little, so that after twenty years of rigorous pull-testing, many canopies have weak spots. Twenty years after acid mesh first reared its ugly head, many of those manufacturers (Eagle, GQ Security, Handbury, Pioneer, etc.)have gone out of business, with most of the surviving companies (Free Flight Enterprises, National, Para-Phernalia, etc.) saying not to pack any of their equipment more than 20 years old. ... which I perceive as subtle (legally cowardly) way of saying "give up on any round canopy we made during the acid mesh era." Ergo, there is little point to new riggers spending $300-ish on clamps and bromocreasol green to test for acid mesh. Instead, I usually advise young riggers to take canopies - suspected of acid mesh - to the nearest, grumpy old grey-bearded Master Rigger and ask him to re-certify the canopy as "acid free." That is the same logic I use when telling young riggers not to bother spending $3000 for an FXC test chamber, because they will never test enough FXC 12000 AADs to recoup their investment in expensive test chambers. Similarly, there is little "return on investment" if they spend $300 plus dollars to build a table long enough to pack round reserves if they are only going to pack one or two round reserves per year. I have packed thousands of round reserves on tables, but my knees are too old to pack round reserves on the floor anymore. I even told my DZO that "the day I loose access to the long table in Hangar 13 is the last day I pack a round reserve." Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites Beatnik 2 #19 December 30, 2009 I have taught in a high school for many years and know of the challenges of designing courses and planning them more than most. You are not overloading a rigger by making or having them learn. That is like telling a high school student that if we continue learning you will shut down and never learn anything. I am sorry but I don't agree at all with your logic on this. Statistically through the courses that CSPA has held, the candidates that come in with more experience or the ones that experience more during their training are the ones that do better. They should have developed there own style of packing which they can adapt to reserve packing by the time they come in the course if they have the prerequisites. If you are only going over the material that is on the test and burning it into their heads it doesn't surprise me that you have such a high pass rate. I don't agree with that method at all. The training shouldn't be catered so they can pass a test which to seems to me is what is happening. I came into my rigger course with the intention of going for my rigger B from the start. I was already doing all the work when I was working working under Rigger As, Bs, and Cs before I started the course. I think some people understand more than others and naturally gravitate towards different areas and I think some take the course so they don't have to pay someone else. On the note of acid mesh. I completely disagree with you on it. I think it is bullshit to believe that the reason we have square reserves now is because of acid mesh. The sport gravitated to square mains, I think it was a natural progression. If you want to get into years of rigging and working through we can go to one of the people I apprenticed under who earned his rigger ticket in the 50's in the army and then continued as ratings became available. Many of the manufacturers that you list of going out of business had nothing to do with acid mesh. Honestly, I think Jim Handbury dying had a little more to do with the company going out of business than acid mesh. Some of the other companies you listed merged and formed other companies and are around in some form. Clamps are useful with more than testing for acid mesh. I have seen canopies rip that were acid free. These are tools with the exception of bromocreasol green that they use. I agree with the not spending money on a FXC chamber. I don't see much of a need with that as there are getting to be less and less of them. When you sending them back every couple years to the factory, it doesn't seem like a reason to. Last chamber I bought, I paid $150 for. The problem with them is that they have to get checked as well. I think for most riggers if they go out and buy every tool out there, they probably won't get a return out of it. Tools that they can use for many purposes is hardly a waste in my books. I really don't think we will see eye to eye on some of this stuff. If you want we can continue our debate privately cause I don't see it doing a lot of good publicly. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites spootch 0 #20 December 30, 2009 Quote I have taught in a high school for many years and know of the challenges of designing courses and planning them more than most. You are not overloading a rigger by making or having them learn. That is like telling a high school student that if we continue learning you will shut down and never learn anything. I am sorry but I don't agree at all with your logic on this. I think what Rob is saying is to not "feed them with a fire hose" to which I agree. It appears like you both have diffrent teaching styles which is also good. Sounds like you both have much to offer to the sport Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites Herky 0 #21 December 31, 2009 Quote I think what Rob is saying is to not "feed them with a fire hose" to which I agree. I've had art history classes that were nothing but hour after hour of a mono tone guy talking and slide after slide of art work. Memorize all these facts and names and artists and dates and places. Then tested over all those facts. People failed left and right. Poor way of teaching imo. Only the best and brightest passed...but some people never had a chance. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites riggerrob 643 #22 December 31, 2009 " ... On the note of acid mesh. I completely disagree with you on it. I think it is bullshit to believe that the reason we have square reserves now is because of acid mesh. The sport gravitated to square mains, I think it was a natural progression. ..." ........................................................................ I think that round reserves disappearred because round mains disappeared. Circa 1960, Crown Assets Disposal started cutting lines on military-surplus canopies, so that 1980, DZOs could not buy intact military surplus round canopies. That was the primary motivation for skydiving schools switching to square mains. Fortunately, the LR288/Manta was perfected about the same time the crunch hit. By the end of the 1980s USPA and CSPA had banned round mains for students. Ergo, these days it is the rare civilian skydiving instructor who knows how to teach pilots how to steer or land round parachutes. By "land round parachutes" I mean full-blown Parachute Landing Falls, the likes of which it took the Canadian (Army) Airborne Center two weeks to pound into me (back in 1981)! My DZO banned round reserves - early in this century - because Pitt Meadows is bordered on one side by the Fraser River and on another side by the town of Pitt Meadows. He put his money where his mouth is by buying square reserves for all his students back in 1996. As an instructor I much prefer square reserves because they vastly simplify the first jump course. If I have a bad attitude towards round parachutes, it is because I have too much experience (70-odd jumps on round mains and three rides on round reserves)! I learned to skydive on military-surplus round parachutes - back in the 1970s. I suffered my first malfunction on a Crossbow, (high-performance round main) back in 1979 and survived 'cus I deployed a non-steerable, 24 foot, flat circular, military-surplus reserve. Later, I tore up round canopies (during inversion type malfunctions) at CABC and the West German Luftlandeluftransport Schule. The last time I deployed a round reserve was in 1986, while testing equipment for the German Army. That round reserve had so little forward speed, that I missed the country! I dis-like round reserves because familiarity breeds contempt! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites Beatnik 2 #23 January 1, 2010 QuoteIf I have a bad attitude towards round parachutes, it is because I have too much experience (70-odd jumps on round mains and three rides on round reserves)! I just dislike people giving rounds a bad rep. I have over 500 round jumps and I have never been hurt by a round. However, I have been hurt by a square. I can PLF like most people don't know exist and can do it in any direction. I know for a fact that saved my bacon more than once. I probably do more round and other shape parachute jumps than anyone else right now. I am usually doing between 80-100 a year just on them. Don't get me wrong, I much rather have a square reserve and think that it is better to train students on squares not because of simplification or anything like that. I like to train them on squares for the main reason that if they continue on in the sport they will most likely be getting a square reserve. From a psychological view it is much better to keep the training consistent than training them on another method when they get their own gear. On the note of CSPA banning round mains for students, I personally believe that was to try and force a particular dropzone that was still using round mains up into the mid 90's to switch. I don't quite agree how it came about but I do believe that is the right way to go. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites skypuppy 1 #24 January 2, 2010 Do the military still use rounds? Yes. There's a reason for that. The disappearance of round reserves, like Jim said, was brought about more by associations then the acid mesh problems. The banning of round mains was a purely political ploy by cspa groups members which blew up in their face and resulted in the formation of a competing association. And I say this as someone who was a chief inst at a club and owned some student rigs with square parachutes that I would rent out, before and after changing the club from round to square mains. It didn't matter to me what the club down the road was using, I just wanted to be happy with my own student gear. Once people stopped jumping rounds as mains, it made some sense to start using square reserves in student rigs. However, after that the MOT began requiring that square reserves be used on demos. That pretty much meant that experienced jumpers had to get square reserves. Not sure whether that was MOT's initiative or whether it was a suggestion from cspa, but it would disturb me if it was cspa's suggestion. I still have a couple of round reserve rigs around. I wouldn't want to jump them in high winds, but there's nothing wrong with them, other then the fact I've gained some weight....If some old guy can do it then obviously it can't be very extreme. Otherwise he'd already be dead. Bruce McConkey 'I thought we were gonna die, and I couldn't think of anyone Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites riggerrob 643 #25 January 2, 2010 " ... On the note of CSPA banning round mains for students, I personally believe that was to try and force a particular dropzone that was still using round mains up into the mid 90's to switch. I don't quite agree how it came about but I do believe that is the right way to go...." ........................................................................ I applauded CSPA's (and USPA's) decision to ban round mains for students - in the late 1980s. I jumped at Parachute School of Toronto (Arthur, Ontario) during the summer of 1979. I carried far too many stretchers off that DZ that summer. Even if only one percent of PST's students broke legs, one percent was too many! When we (Waterville, Nova Scotia) switched to Para-Commanders in the mid-1980s, we saw a ten-fold reduction in ankle injuries. When we (Black Forest Parachute Club) switched to docile squares in 1987, we saw a further reduction in broken legs. I believe that the switch to square parachutes was driven by a desire to reduce leg fractures, a desire that was soon backed by statistics. My personal theory is that rounds tend to pound straight in, while square strike a glancing blow at the planet. Ergo students under rounds need a near -perfect PLF to absorb all that energy in a short stroke, while students under rounds can slide or roll for a much farther distance to absorb excess landing energy. You may argue all the theory that you want, but my opinion is based upon the number of broken legs I had to carry off the DZ. Square mains for students result in bored stretcher-bearers. ... bored stretcher-bearers are a good thing ... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Beatnik 2 #16 December 28, 2009 QuoteWhich is why my Rigger A Course always start with:"How many of you want to get signed off to pack round reserves? None? Then I will only teach you enough about round canopies to pass the written exam." I think that they should have more knowledge than enough to pass an exam. Not relating this to your courses but there are a ton of riggers out there that think they know what they are talking about when it comes to parachutes because they are a rigger. Just because they have a rating doesn't mean crap. I remember having a conversation with a master rigger who was telling me that rounds were unsafe and they should be banned. I told him he doesn't know what he is talking about and that his rating doesn't make him an expert. I think people should be trained to be able to pack anything. They will be much better off. Round reserves may have collapsed in the late 1980's for the sport market but I don't think it was because if acid mesh. I think it was more because of the natural evolution of gear and that is the way it was going to go. I am not sure of the $300 in extra tools to pack them. I can't think of what would cost that much to pack only rounds. A tension board and a line separator doesn't come close to that. I use both of those things for both rounds and squares. Not that I use a tension board with squares but it does keep the risers nice and straight. Candidates for any course are going to grumble about the course material and that will not change. I think it is more that they don't understand and not think there is any value to it. My personal thoughts are if a rigger wants to shut down their mind to learning so early on, I can't imagine how they are going to become good riggers. The PEP course is your idea for it. CSPA doesn't have anything like that. Emergency rigs are a rating and involves a practical test. They should have the knowledge in the first place how to pack parachutes of different types right from the beginning IMO. If they know how to read a manual and follow it they should be able to show that they can pack a rig. I personally don't think it is necessary for a course. To me I think it sounds more like a way to generate revenue and I am not opposed to you doing that cause you are the one signing off their ticket. I have been debating about getting my rigging instructor rating for a while now. But I know with me, the course would take a while to do and they would receive a lot of training more than a week like most of the rigger courses I have seen and heard of. Just from the historical trends I doubt everyone would be passing like I have seen some courses been able to somehow produce. Most CSPA rigger courses from when it started back with the TTSC only had about 10% - 25% of the candidates actually finishing and getting their rating. Some of the courses out there make me wonder how good they are when they produce 90+% of the candidates getting their ratings. Again nothing against your courses as I have no first hand knowledge about them or how they are structured. I just know what I have seen with riggers out there in Canada and am really surprised that some have got their ticket. I know the way I would structure and teach my course since I have an outline for it. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
riggerrob 643 #17 December 29, 2009 The challenge - when planing any course - is breaking down material to "must knows," "should knows" and "could knows." Students can only absorb a finite amount of knowledge during a course. If you overload rigger apprentices with too many "could knows" too early in the course, they will feel over-loaded and will shut down. Which is why I prefer to teach rigger apprentices a few packing methods and have them practice until those methods start to burn in to longer term memory. For example: I recently told a rigger apprentice that we would start by learning how to pack Vectors and Sidewinders and we were going to continue practicing packing Sidewinders until he started to develop a rhythm/habits/pattern. After he developed a pattern to packing Sidewinders, then we would move on to packing Javelins. Once he started to get graceful at packing Javelins, we would pack a few Mirages, etc. That is why 95 percent of my Rigger A candidates pass the written exam on the first try and a good 80 percent pass their packing tests on the last day of the course. What happens after the course is a mystery. All students forget some material the first few days after the course. What happens in the long run depends upon the rigger's personality. Sadly, some riggers will "peak" that last day of the course and that their best days are soon behind them. The longer since their course, the more they have forgotten. OTOH Curious riggers will continuously study and practice so that they know more a year after the course than when they graduated. Curious Rigger As get recommended for Rigger B (FAA Master Rigger) training two or three years after their first course. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
riggerrob 643 #18 December 29, 2009 " ... Round reserves may have collapsed in the late 1980's for the sport market but I don't think it was because if acid mesh. I think it was more because of the natural evolution of gear and that is the way it was going to go. I am not sure of the $300 in extra tools to pack them. I can't think of what would cost that much to pack only rounds. ..." ................................................................................................... We are just going to have to be gentlemen and agree to disagree on this subject. I earned my CSPA Rigger A rating in 1984 and worked all through the acid mesh era. I believe that methods for re-certifying acidic mesh were - at best - stop-gap measures to quickly return the fleet of suspect round reserves to the sky. Every time you pull-test fabric you weaken it a little, so that after twenty years of rigorous pull-testing, many canopies have weak spots. Twenty years after acid mesh first reared its ugly head, many of those manufacturers (Eagle, GQ Security, Handbury, Pioneer, etc.)have gone out of business, with most of the surviving companies (Free Flight Enterprises, National, Para-Phernalia, etc.) saying not to pack any of their equipment more than 20 years old. ... which I perceive as subtle (legally cowardly) way of saying "give up on any round canopy we made during the acid mesh era." Ergo, there is little point to new riggers spending $300-ish on clamps and bromocreasol green to test for acid mesh. Instead, I usually advise young riggers to take canopies - suspected of acid mesh - to the nearest, grumpy old grey-bearded Master Rigger and ask him to re-certify the canopy as "acid free." That is the same logic I use when telling young riggers not to bother spending $3000 for an FXC test chamber, because they will never test enough FXC 12000 AADs to recoup their investment in expensive test chambers. Similarly, there is little "return on investment" if they spend $300 plus dollars to build a table long enough to pack round reserves if they are only going to pack one or two round reserves per year. I have packed thousands of round reserves on tables, but my knees are too old to pack round reserves on the floor anymore. I even told my DZO that "the day I loose access to the long table in Hangar 13 is the last day I pack a round reserve." Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Beatnik 2 #19 December 30, 2009 I have taught in a high school for many years and know of the challenges of designing courses and planning them more than most. You are not overloading a rigger by making or having them learn. That is like telling a high school student that if we continue learning you will shut down and never learn anything. I am sorry but I don't agree at all with your logic on this. Statistically through the courses that CSPA has held, the candidates that come in with more experience or the ones that experience more during their training are the ones that do better. They should have developed there own style of packing which they can adapt to reserve packing by the time they come in the course if they have the prerequisites. If you are only going over the material that is on the test and burning it into their heads it doesn't surprise me that you have such a high pass rate. I don't agree with that method at all. The training shouldn't be catered so they can pass a test which to seems to me is what is happening. I came into my rigger course with the intention of going for my rigger B from the start. I was already doing all the work when I was working working under Rigger As, Bs, and Cs before I started the course. I think some people understand more than others and naturally gravitate towards different areas and I think some take the course so they don't have to pay someone else. On the note of acid mesh. I completely disagree with you on it. I think it is bullshit to believe that the reason we have square reserves now is because of acid mesh. The sport gravitated to square mains, I think it was a natural progression. If you want to get into years of rigging and working through we can go to one of the people I apprenticed under who earned his rigger ticket in the 50's in the army and then continued as ratings became available. Many of the manufacturers that you list of going out of business had nothing to do with acid mesh. Honestly, I think Jim Handbury dying had a little more to do with the company going out of business than acid mesh. Some of the other companies you listed merged and formed other companies and are around in some form. Clamps are useful with more than testing for acid mesh. I have seen canopies rip that were acid free. These are tools with the exception of bromocreasol green that they use. I agree with the not spending money on a FXC chamber. I don't see much of a need with that as there are getting to be less and less of them. When you sending them back every couple years to the factory, it doesn't seem like a reason to. Last chamber I bought, I paid $150 for. The problem with them is that they have to get checked as well. I think for most riggers if they go out and buy every tool out there, they probably won't get a return out of it. Tools that they can use for many purposes is hardly a waste in my books. I really don't think we will see eye to eye on some of this stuff. If you want we can continue our debate privately cause I don't see it doing a lot of good publicly. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
spootch 0 #20 December 30, 2009 Quote I have taught in a high school for many years and know of the challenges of designing courses and planning them more than most. You are not overloading a rigger by making or having them learn. That is like telling a high school student that if we continue learning you will shut down and never learn anything. I am sorry but I don't agree at all with your logic on this. I think what Rob is saying is to not "feed them with a fire hose" to which I agree. It appears like you both have diffrent teaching styles which is also good. Sounds like you both have much to offer to the sport Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Herky 0 #21 December 31, 2009 Quote I think what Rob is saying is to not "feed them with a fire hose" to which I agree. I've had art history classes that were nothing but hour after hour of a mono tone guy talking and slide after slide of art work. Memorize all these facts and names and artists and dates and places. Then tested over all those facts. People failed left and right. Poor way of teaching imo. Only the best and brightest passed...but some people never had a chance. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
riggerrob 643 #22 December 31, 2009 " ... On the note of acid mesh. I completely disagree with you on it. I think it is bullshit to believe that the reason we have square reserves now is because of acid mesh. The sport gravitated to square mains, I think it was a natural progression. ..." ........................................................................ I think that round reserves disappearred because round mains disappeared. Circa 1960, Crown Assets Disposal started cutting lines on military-surplus canopies, so that 1980, DZOs could not buy intact military surplus round canopies. That was the primary motivation for skydiving schools switching to square mains. Fortunately, the LR288/Manta was perfected about the same time the crunch hit. By the end of the 1980s USPA and CSPA had banned round mains for students. Ergo, these days it is the rare civilian skydiving instructor who knows how to teach pilots how to steer or land round parachutes. By "land round parachutes" I mean full-blown Parachute Landing Falls, the likes of which it took the Canadian (Army) Airborne Center two weeks to pound into me (back in 1981)! My DZO banned round reserves - early in this century - because Pitt Meadows is bordered on one side by the Fraser River and on another side by the town of Pitt Meadows. He put his money where his mouth is by buying square reserves for all his students back in 1996. As an instructor I much prefer square reserves because they vastly simplify the first jump course. If I have a bad attitude towards round parachutes, it is because I have too much experience (70-odd jumps on round mains and three rides on round reserves)! I learned to skydive on military-surplus round parachutes - back in the 1970s. I suffered my first malfunction on a Crossbow, (high-performance round main) back in 1979 and survived 'cus I deployed a non-steerable, 24 foot, flat circular, military-surplus reserve. Later, I tore up round canopies (during inversion type malfunctions) at CABC and the West German Luftlandeluftransport Schule. The last time I deployed a round reserve was in 1986, while testing equipment for the German Army. That round reserve had so little forward speed, that I missed the country! I dis-like round reserves because familiarity breeds contempt! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Beatnik 2 #23 January 1, 2010 QuoteIf I have a bad attitude towards round parachutes, it is because I have too much experience (70-odd jumps on round mains and three rides on round reserves)! I just dislike people giving rounds a bad rep. I have over 500 round jumps and I have never been hurt by a round. However, I have been hurt by a square. I can PLF like most people don't know exist and can do it in any direction. I know for a fact that saved my bacon more than once. I probably do more round and other shape parachute jumps than anyone else right now. I am usually doing between 80-100 a year just on them. Don't get me wrong, I much rather have a square reserve and think that it is better to train students on squares not because of simplification or anything like that. I like to train them on squares for the main reason that if they continue on in the sport they will most likely be getting a square reserve. From a psychological view it is much better to keep the training consistent than training them on another method when they get their own gear. On the note of CSPA banning round mains for students, I personally believe that was to try and force a particular dropzone that was still using round mains up into the mid 90's to switch. I don't quite agree how it came about but I do believe that is the right way to go. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
skypuppy 1 #24 January 2, 2010 Do the military still use rounds? Yes. There's a reason for that. The disappearance of round reserves, like Jim said, was brought about more by associations then the acid mesh problems. The banning of round mains was a purely political ploy by cspa groups members which blew up in their face and resulted in the formation of a competing association. And I say this as someone who was a chief inst at a club and owned some student rigs with square parachutes that I would rent out, before and after changing the club from round to square mains. It didn't matter to me what the club down the road was using, I just wanted to be happy with my own student gear. Once people stopped jumping rounds as mains, it made some sense to start using square reserves in student rigs. However, after that the MOT began requiring that square reserves be used on demos. That pretty much meant that experienced jumpers had to get square reserves. Not sure whether that was MOT's initiative or whether it was a suggestion from cspa, but it would disturb me if it was cspa's suggestion. I still have a couple of round reserve rigs around. I wouldn't want to jump them in high winds, but there's nothing wrong with them, other then the fact I've gained some weight....If some old guy can do it then obviously it can't be very extreme. Otherwise he'd already be dead. Bruce McConkey 'I thought we were gonna die, and I couldn't think of anyone Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
riggerrob 643 #25 January 2, 2010 " ... On the note of CSPA banning round mains for students, I personally believe that was to try and force a particular dropzone that was still using round mains up into the mid 90's to switch. I don't quite agree how it came about but I do believe that is the right way to go...." ........................................................................ I applauded CSPA's (and USPA's) decision to ban round mains for students - in the late 1980s. I jumped at Parachute School of Toronto (Arthur, Ontario) during the summer of 1979. I carried far too many stretchers off that DZ that summer. Even if only one percent of PST's students broke legs, one percent was too many! When we (Waterville, Nova Scotia) switched to Para-Commanders in the mid-1980s, we saw a ten-fold reduction in ankle injuries. When we (Black Forest Parachute Club) switched to docile squares in 1987, we saw a further reduction in broken legs. I believe that the switch to square parachutes was driven by a desire to reduce leg fractures, a desire that was soon backed by statistics. My personal theory is that rounds tend to pound straight in, while square strike a glancing blow at the planet. Ergo students under rounds need a near -perfect PLF to absorb all that energy in a short stroke, while students under rounds can slide or roll for a much farther distance to absorb excess landing energy. You may argue all the theory that you want, but my opinion is based upon the number of broken legs I had to carry off the DZ. Square mains for students result in bored stretcher-bearers. ... bored stretcher-bearers are a good thing ... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
