FrogNog

One possible silver lining: this looks like the best possible resumé addition a guy could have: "Took borderline-failing sport portion of dropzone business and made it so successful the previous owner bought it back." (Now, if that phrasing sounds too polite for some peoples' ears, my explanation is that it's bad luck to speak ill on a resumé.) -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I just learned to count to 9; that works for me. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

For a while I swore I could "smell" the difference between air at 13k and air below about 12k. I think it was really just fear. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I realized right after I posted my question that I was refering to an (as in, "one single kind of") aerodynamic measurement that need have nothing to do with the numbers manufacturers report. And I have to admit that describing the chord of a wing with part of it missing has to be a little difficult. Does one describe the aerodynamic effective wing, or the actual sewn wing? Now, here's an interesting question: when a canopy does that "breathing" thing in turbulence, how much are the chord, span, and max chord thickness changing? -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Actually, isn't the chord on a ram-air wing measured from where the leading edge would be if it weren't cut out to make the nose inlet, to the trailing edge (in a straight line)? (Obviously this doesn't apply to any fully-formed-nose canopies or canopies where the leading edge is not included in the inlet, but I believe both those cases together are still the minority of canopy designs.) -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Aspect ratio is the ratio of the square of the span to the square of the chord. So any canopy that has a higher aspect ratio (e.g. the 9-cell in your example) will have a higher span-to-chord ratio than a canopy with a lower aspect ratio. Whether that means it has a larger span and a shorter chord depends on the size of the canopies; if the canopies are the same square footage, then the results are straightforward. The rate of descent is not dependent strictly on aspect ratio. Aspect ratio is one component that contributes to the lift-to-drag ratio of the canopy in a certain configuration (i.e. a certain angle of attack, a certain airfoil, and a certain airspeed). Rate of descent is just part of the airspeed for a canopy with a given airspeed - which in balanced flight should mean the thrust, weight, lift, and drag components are all balanced - and you have to figure out what those are based on jumper weight and the angle of attack of the canopy. Lots of interrelated stuff. Another difference between 9-cell canopies and 7-cell canopies is the thickness of the airfoil at various points. Perhaps an even larger difference (this I don't know because I have no way to know it for sure yet) is the differences in airfoils the various canopies use - I expect it varies between almost every model regardless of cell quantity. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

To me Infinitys with hip rings don't feel like they pull as much at my shoulders or back when I bend my legs up while sitting in the plane. I think they're easier to run and walk in, but I haven't worn a non-hip-ring rig in so long I can't say for sure. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I believe there is federal government flood insurance for people who are in flood plains. (See, they can't get it from private insurers, so they need help...) I reckon they should change that to federal government move-somewhere-else grants. I see nothing wrong with building a home on a floodplain if the lowest part of the foundation is above the 100-year floodpoint. But I guess most people would rather build low, hope, and rebuild than build a house sticking up in the air. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Have you ever been in a plane with tandems when things got a little nervous and watched them? From what I saw it looks like it takes about 10 seconds for a good TM to wake up (), roll from his back onto his knees, and get the top two clips on and be working on the side clips. (It might take a couple more seconds to get the side clips; I don't know how adrenaline affects clipping up what is harder to see.) -=-=-=-=- Pull.

(P.S. I'm not jumping a spectre anymore. I need to change my avatar. :) -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Can you recall what your instructors told you about finding the stall point on a canopy, and doing practice flares? Have your instructors talked to you at all about the possible differences in landing a 7-cell canopy vs. a 9-cell canopy (I think the Navigator is a 9-cell...)? -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I think for efficiency they save all their aircraft emergencies up for the end of the year, then they break / crash / set alight everything at once. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I think there is one in private ownership somewhere in these parts. Or, at least it flies through Harvey Field (S43) a couple times a year. I believe it wears the old-style Coast Guard paint, white with some red. I swear, the next time I see that thing go itinerant I'm getting my gear together and talking to the pilots. (The "talking" may be followed shortly by begging, groveling, and all sorts of disgusting offers like using some hot soapy water, a sponge, and a very tall ladder.) -=-=-=-=- Pull.

It is my understanding that the maximum optimal loading for F-111 mains is around 1:1 (pounds per square feet). This is because of the extra porosity of F-111, especially after a hundred jumps. This contrasts strongly with loading of ZP mains, which don't leak air throughout their fabric while flying as a matter of course, even after several hundred jumps. These canopies can be designed to fly well at low wingloadings like F-111 mains and/or can be designed to fly well at higher wingloadings - 1:1 to even as high as 2:1. (Technically they can be designed to fly and [maybe] land well with wingloadings far above 2:1, but the human skill and reflex components tend to limit the wingloading before then.

Did you keep in mind that F-111 main canopies take wingloading differently than ZP canopies? -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I'm still waiting for corroboration that the pilot "told" the jumpers to leave. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Wouldn't it be about as good to bump the threads? And what's wrong with helping the noobs on dropzone.com use the search function? Granted, searching is not always easy to get the desired results, but when someone else searches and finds some good threads and puts links to those in their responses to new posts, isn't that pretty good for everyone around? -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I step into my leg straps first, then I thread my chest strap properly. At this point nothing is fastened, if by that you mean tightened, however everything is connected. I do it in this order because it is super-obvious to me if I start moving toward the plane and my legstraps are loose, but it is not super-obvious to me if I start moving toward the plane and my chest strap is completely undone. So this is just a procedural requirement I imposed on myself to avoid brain-fading on my chest strap. Once everything is donned and threaded like this, I tighten my legs and then my chest strap. I don't worry about the order here, although I usually start with the legs because they aren't optional from this point on. A properly tightened chest strap is less important to me, and I'll probably adjust it once or twice on the way to altitude as I think about what I'm going to be doing, or as I'm being comfortable on the plane, etc.. (I won't undo it on the way to altitude, of course.) -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Well, very few of us still jump F-111 mains. Our reasoning is that we like ZP mains, a lot. By the way, how much do you weigh? Finding a good deal on a used just-off-student-status type canopy can take a while, so patience may work out for you here. People have written previously about how they like or do not like the Tempo reserve. I will confine my response to say that I have not deployed one but I am OK with having it be my last chance canopy until I pay the extra money to upgrade to a PD Reserve. (One of my rigs has a PDR, one has a Tempo, and the third is "between reserves" right now.) -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I suffered almost the same problem as ScottyInAus, except I didn't need antibiotics, and the pain wasn't that bad. (It wasn't that _good_, either, and I only jumped from 3k.) I have since resolved to waste the extra week to be sure. It saves time in the long run. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Regarding the idea of a chest strap buckle attaching to the MLW via a ring, so it can change orientation to remain in line with the load: would the buckle orient itself properly to a load coming from another direction (i.e. the asymmetric riser loading issue)? I think that would depend on how much the geometry of the buckle made the buckle "prefer" to orient to the strap. And how much do the buckles currently attached directly to the MLW via a short loop of webbing orient toward misaligned loads? Do they do it enough in most cases? Do they only fail when a hard opening combines with a serious harness shift problem such as an undone legstrap (or an adjustable MLW that is or becomes improperly adjusted )? Executive summary: is it really broke? -=-=-=-=- Pull.

You are right - freefliers fall faster than belly fliers. That's actually why some DZs wand the freefliers to get out later. Can you figure out why someone would want faster fallers to get out after slower fallers? (Certainly you can search the other posts and get the info that way, but if you don't want to search, you have an excellent Socratic learning opportunity.) -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Water fully dissolved in air is a gas, and because of Boyle's law (I believe), and the fact that H2O has a smaller atomic weight than either N2 or O2, water dissolved in air actually makes the air less dense, not more dense. This is part of why air containing water that evaporates out of the ground rises and forms clouds. Now, water in liquid form suspended in air is a different story. We usually refer to this as "industrial haze" and I don't think that's what you were asking about.

Does Felix even do a jump if nobody's watching? -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I thought the Lotus has 9 cells? That might explain why my jump on one didn't open the way I wanted it to - if I packed it like it had two extra cells, then who knows what pieces of nylon I was grabbing and moving around. -=-=-=-=- Pull.