Only 80,000 Cypres sold?

[Milo 0]

I was looking at the Cypress2 on Paragear http://www.paragear.com/and read the following:

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Based on the experience of producing 80,000 high-tech AADs and servicing them for 12 1/2 years in a way that no one has ever refused to fire when it should, there is a maintenance necessary 4 years after production and 8 years after production and the lifetime is 12 years.

The thing that caught my eye was the

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Based on the experience of producing 80,000 high-tech AADs

For some reason that number seems small to me. Is the skydiving community even smaller than I estimated?

Between all the student rigs in the US, and all the skydivers who use them... I would not have been surprised if the number was several times that.

[jumpinfarmer 0]

I'm suprised to. It's only been about nine mounths since I started and before that I thought skydiving was a lot more popular than it is. It's a great sport more people should give it a try.

[frankiebrina 0]

Well I've read that it is one of the sports that has the most active participants in the world.

[PhreeZone 20]

Look at the licences for the USPA. There are only 37000+ C licence holders and only 27000+ D licence holders. Thats since the start of the licence program and only a fraction of those total jumpers are still active. There are about 35000 active members of the USPA right now and thats high numbers. The rest of the world is about the same in total jumpers. So there are only about 100000 active jumpers worldwide (High estimate). Lots of people don't want an AAD so only about 60-75% of those 100
00 would need a Cypres. And in the USPA numbers that includes DZ's that make people join that only do a tandem or an AFF.

80000 is probally right on for number of units produced.

Skydiving is a really small community and if you stick around a few years its even smaller and it gets smaller every year you are in it.

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[jumpinfarmer 0]

I think it's neet how after a while you get to know most of the jumpers around because there are so few. Thats part of what makes it a great sport.

[Blahr 0]

Not to mention that there ARE other companies that manufacture AAD's.

[DanglesOZQld 0]

I would like to bet a carton on the overall number of jumpers in the world that are regulars. I think your estimate is a little off although I would not at all be surprised by the cypres figure. I know plenty of lifers who have never owned one. Personally I have nearly been killed by an RSL before I was allowed to remove it!! (Nothing like a hell spinning main and cutaway with a lot of height (Doing early camera) ending up with a reserve with 10 line twists in it! BSBD -Mark.

"A Scar is just a Tattoo with a story!!!"

[gremlin 0]

Got to remember that some people have a couple of rigs with cyprus in and there are all the student rigs at each DZ with a cyprus in which can account for 30 odd per DZ depending on the size of the place. So the number of people equipped with a Cyprus may be smaller than people think.

I'm drunk, you're drunk, lets go back to mine....

[Aviatrr 0]

Quote

For some reason that number seems small to me. Is the skydiving community even smaller than I estimated?

80,000 in 12.5 years. That's 6400 per year. 17.5 per day(almost 25 per day manufactured if you count only 5 workdays per week). Seems like quite a bit to me - especially since there are other types of AAD's out there. How many FXC's and Astras are there out there?

Mike

[andy2 0]

the used market for AADs is pretty big too. It seems the turnover rate for skydiving gear in general correlates nicely with the turnover rate of jumpers, i.e. high.

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