First AAD's

[purplened 0]

Does anyone know when the first AAD came out, and what type/company it was?

Or where I can find the history on them?

thanks!

Ned

I'll try being nicer if you try being smarter.

[howardwhite 6]

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Does anyone know when the first AAD came out, and what type/company it was?
Or where I can find the history on them?

There was a thread on this very subject a little less than a year ago. Do a forum search for KAP-3 (one of the early openers) and look at the thread with a reply from BillVon.

HW

[lekstrom10k 0]

The first ones I remember where in the late 660s . It was held on the chest mountedfeserve by the top opening bands {bungies }You had aplate with an altimeter face it had a pointewr knob you set for the activation altitude , after opening you turned it off until your next jump .I gave the one I was given to Mike Horan in Dayto Ohio. for his Museum years ago .It was for the side pull handle .Sentinal was the manufacturer . I have old Parachutists back to to the early 60s Ican dig up and try toscan an ad for you ,I am new at confusrers and might get help to do it. By the way the replacement handle had a powder charge that fired that propeled a shuttle sideways to extract both pins at the same time. I hope this helps

[purplened 0]

Thanks to both of you, that helped a lot.

A friend of mine is doing research, so if he needs anything else, I'll get him to ask.

Cheers!

I'll try being nicer if you try being smarter.

[JerryBaumchen 1,363]

The first commercially built AAD was, as lekstrom says, the Sentinel by Steve Snyder Enterprises. It came out in the early 60's and was part of the altimeter in it's original configuration.

Jerry

[MakeItHappen 15]

Quote

Does anyone know when the first AAD came out, and what type/company it was?

Or where I can find the history on them?

thanks!

Ned

Sentinel
Hi-Tek 8000

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.
Make It Happen
Parachute History
DiveMaker

[JerryBaumchen 1,363]

Hi Jan,

The first photo in that link shows a 2nd generation (or so) Sentinel. The first ones used a thick altimeter, about 2" + thick as I recall.

You had to turn them on after getting to about 1500 feet or so, as they were set to fire at 1000 ft.

One dufus who we jumped with us back in the 60's had one on his reserve and some little kid asks him what it is, and he tells the kid. So the kid says "How does it work?" Yup, the dufus turns her on and BAM, an open reserve while standing there in front of the kid.

Ah, the good old days; let's keep them there,

Jerry

[RogerRamjet 0]

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Hi Jan,

The first photo in that link shows a 2nd generation (or so) Sentinel. The first ones used a thick altimeter, about 2" + thick as I recall.

You had to turn them on after getting to about 1500 feet or so, as they were set to fire at 1000 ft.

One dufus who we jumped with us back in the 60's had one on his reserve and some little kid asks him what it is, and he tells the kid. So the kid says "How does it work?" Yup, the dufus turns her on and BAM, an open reserve while standing there in front of the kid.

Ah, the good old days; let's keep them there,

Jerry

The 2nd gen Sentinel was better, but some jumpmasters were not trained as well as some others... I remember one calibrating the thing on jump run because he had forgotten to do it before take-off. As you might have guessed, the reserve fired not long after exit.

The KAP-3 mentioned above was for the main I believe. A lot of RW jumpers would not jump with someone who had one because they had a reputation for firing high.

Things have gotten a lot better...

-----------------------
Roger "Ramjet" Clark
FB# 271, SCR 3245, SCS 1519

[Amazon 7]

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By the way the replacement handle had a powder charge that fired that propeled a shuttle sideways to extract both pins at the same time. I hope this helps

I had one of those.....and in 2 reserve rides on that reserve I never DID lose that freakin handle.

I had that WONDERFUL panel on the reserve with the altimeter.. and a stop watch... it did not taste very good when the reserve was opening.

[howardwhite 6]

Another not so cool thing about the Sentinel was that it would fire if you landed in water. So part of "unusual landings" training had to be turning off the Sentinel if you were headed for water, particularly if the water was a fast-moving river.

I remember just such an incident where the jumper landed in a river at high water flow time and got dragged along for a while by his inflated reserve. Not pretty.

HW

[Cloudmuncher 0]

Hey Larry, glad to see ya finally made it on DZ.
How things at Napoleon this year?

[lekstrom10k 0]

Things are slow like everywhere else. Hold on to something your not going to believe this .Ready we dont have to take the peddle blocks and three telephone books out for real pilots to fly .someone is actually shorter than Weinie [Mikey Pelzer ]. Hard to believe huh Jeff the new pilot was from San Diego, origionaly from Memphis Richmond ,Romeo area.Naturally a better pilot and has a personality not at all like Mikey what a relief eh.Other than that same old same old.NNow that I work for MARVIN I have more time to dink with this stuff No I dont have apocket protector with 15 pens and adhesive tape around my glasses .Ihave 10961 today and have my 11000 dive planned in afew weeks .or sooner.Come on by and be on it . After the usual drunk disorderly probably nakedness partytimes

[steve1 5]

In 1970 I was sitting in the Green Beret Parachute Club in Ft. Bragg drinking a cold one. We were supposed to be pulling a detail, but we ghosted out and our sargent in charge showed us this really cool hang out. There were freefall photos on every wall and I was fascinated. I only had about about eight army static line jumps, and knew that someday I was going to be a skydiver.

At any rate our sargent was a sport jumper and he was doing his best to sell me his para-commander. He had orders for Nam and he wanted to sell it. So one of the dumb questions I asked him was about automatic openers.

So, in a Southern drawl he went on to educate me about how they worked...."Yep, I used to have one on my rig. I was in the middle of a style routine, doing a back flip, when wham...my damn chute opens. It jerked the hell out of me. When I got on the ground I took off my harness and ripped the damn thing. I then threw the son-of-a- bitch as far as I could into the bushes.

So, at any rate that's about all I know about the early automatic openers.....Steve1

[kkeenan 14]

I was a young USAF airman in 1974 jumping with an Army club in Thailand. We had an Army 2-star jumping with us who wanted to do RW. Since he was pretty skinny and I was too, I was the one picked to fly with him. The general didn't have many jumps, and there always seemed to be a crowd of colonels following him around checking his gear. So, when one of them was "checking" the general's Sentinel on the way to altitude in the C-130 that day, I didn't pay much attention. We exited, and I pinned the general, and we flew the 2-way. At around 3500 ft., I checked my altimeter, which was in a clear plastic pocket on my upper arm. As I looked back, the general's belly-mount reserve was on its way out of the container. He didn't see it, as it was coming out to the side and he was looking at me. That thing moved at what looked like the speed of light, and the next thing I saw was a blue blur where the general had been. I was still laying there in freefall, with one glove hanging by a finger, the other glove gone, and the general nowhere in sight. Yes, that colonel had succeeded in resetting the Sentinal. I'm just lucky I wasn't above him when it fired.

There were many stories of Sentinals firing at inappropriate altitudes back then. Many big RW loads would not allow them, just because of the chance of firing early.

Kevin

_____________________________________
Dude, you are so awesome...
Can I be on your ash jump ?