gdmusumeci

Maybe this is a little bit of a strange question, but you're talking about using a PD193 main (0.9:1) and a 150 reserve (1.16:1). These are going to fly pretty differently! If you don't mind my asking, what factors have led you to picking these canopy sizes?

I don't mean to be a pedant, but strobe lights aren't required. FAR Part 105.19, "Parachute operations between sunset and sunrise," says: As you can see, the regulation does not actually require a strobe light, merely one that is visible for three miles. On top of that, you don't need it until you have a canopy over your head. This is the only thing that the FAA has to say about night jumps: any other requirements would be pursuant to the USPA BSRs.

I note that you are only asking about the negative failure case (that is, under the set of circumstances required for the device to take an action, no action occurred) and not the potential positive failures. To give an example for clarity -- someone dying because their (properly maintained and operated) AAD did not fire would be a negative failure; someone dying because while they were on the step, their AAD prematurely deployed a canopy into the horizontal stabilizer with the obvious chain of events following, would be a positive failure. Is there some reason why you are only interested in negative failures here? The positive failure cases are usually equally detrimental to one's well-being.... Just curious!

This is my rule of thumb as well. A little bit of toggle input to keep flying straight is acceptable, with some careful attention to keeping the wing flying straight through the flare, but that's about the limit for me.

I've heard a lot of people saying that they have taken a wrap on their brake lines to stall their canopy. It seems like this maybe isn't a good idea. The situation I'm imagining goes like so. You take a few wraps on the brake lines and induce a stall. When you try to recover from the stall, you have a violent recovery (perhaps you let up unevenly, or too quickly). You are now in a not particularly nice situation: you're spinning hard under a partially inflated parachute, which might put quite a lot of tension on the control lines. Unfortunately, they're wrapped around your hands: it seems like that might restrict your access to the cutaway handle. Perhaps it's safer to stall on rear risers, or perhaps I'm just being paranoid. Does anyone have any thoughts on this topic?

This evening I sat down and started working on an analysis of landing incidents. I confess to having some selfish motivations here, as I have been vaguely considering downsizing late this year or early next year (I really do think about stuff that far in advance), and I wanted to try and get a sense of what the risk profile for someone in that position would be (approx. 300 jumps and a WL of 1.25 under a Spectre or Sabre2 190). I found out the answer to my question, but my canopy progression is not really what this is about -- although if you have an opinion you can PM me. In 2005 alone, I counted 18 landing incidents, of which about half were associated with high-performance landings. The wing-loading distribution seemed to be approximately bimodal, with a peak around 1.3 and another around 1.8. That's somewhat interesting, but it pretty much lines up with what I expected. This has also been one of the most emotionally unpleasant and discouraging hours I've spent doing things that involved skydiving. Since I feel like I've gotten the answer to my question, and working on this project is quite depressing, I'm interested in whether other people think this sort of analysis is worth pursuing in more depth. Ideally, I'd like to go back through about 2000 or so, and try to find out whether the things that seem to be true actually are true, and whether there are factors associated with risk. Thanks for the input!

Got in touch with Paratec and had a new visor within a week. Not such a bad customer service experience, overall. And I'm still quite fond of the helmet.

Left a message for him at SQ1's suggestion (thanks Dominic!) a few weeks ago and haven't heard back -- I'll reattempt. Thanks for the pointer. Mine cracked along the right-hand side, from the top of the visor down to maybe 3" of the bottom. The crack pretty much follows the contour of the lens. It's pretty impressive. The tabs are fine, although the left hand side of the rotation mechanism seems to be a bit sticky.

I have a Paratec FreeZR and it does indeed fit my big noggin (over glasses, even, and the visor's big enough to let me see my handles). Unfortunately, my visor's cracked, and getting a replacement has proven to be a real pain in the ass. I love the helmet -- just a warning....

It's a lot of fun, but three things come to mind. First, you should talk to a local instructor to see what they have to say about it instead of trusting my opinion! Second, plan your spot carefully -- talk to the pilot and get a sense of what the winds aloft are doing. Third, the air density at altitude is significantly less than it is near the ground, so your canopy may appear to fly a little differently. Just something to get used to....

I hope he had a lot of supplemental oxygen...the time of useful consciousness at that altitude is less than sixty seconds.

I have a fairly large noggin. My head is pretty cramped in an Oxygn A3, and I ended up getting a Paratec FreeZR, which I quite like. It's very comfortable and has a fabulous field of view. Check the gear reviews section for some other commentary.

Well, because they don't. Right-of-way is governed by FAR Part 91 Section 91.113. That says, in part, that a balloon has the right-of-way over any other category of aircraft (even that of "gliders," which I assume a parachute would be considered as).

Out of curiosity, are you doing both S-folds prior to putting the canopy in the bag? I have had horrible luck with that method, especially on my Spectre. A packer taught me a trick once (thanks again, Gigi) that has helped me immensely. It goes something like this -- after the canopy is cocooned up nicely, carefully fold the corners of the top of the cocoon underneath (note that this is all loose fabric and not lines). Then, S-fold the top (farthest from the slider) portion of the canopy; it helps if you put your shin across the canopy lower down. Bag that, using light pressure with the knee to keep the corner you're not working with under control -- too much pressure and fabric goes everywhere, too little pressure and fabric goes everywhere! -- and then you can S-fold the rest of the canopy right into the bag. Voila! Also, it really helps to relax. Parachutes can smell fear and they will misbehave if they think you are either afraid of them or going to manhandle them. Just my two cents. (Please note that I am a total novice and you should absolutely not do this unless you're independently convinced, perhaps with the assistance of an instructor, that this is going to work.)

Just as another data point, my Vector 3 (Cypres, Spectre 210, PD-193R) weighs 26 pounds. I believe that the rest of my jumping kit weighs about ten pounds, shoes included.

My SO says this every time I leave the house for the DZ (and she's not coming along). It's somehow reassuring; I hope to follow this rule for quite some time....

How about a student progression that focuses just as much on canopy flight as it does on freefall skills? I'm not sure why a student (

I have about fifty jumps each on a Sabre2 210 and a Spectre 210, loaded at about 1.1:1. Most of those jumps have been focused on canopy flight. The Spectre has a noticeably softer opening. You need do absolutely nothing particular when packing it. I just let the nose hang and give the tail about five good wraps, and consistently get wonderful, on-heading openings as long as I pay attention to my body position at deployment. I found the Sabre2 to require a little bit more attention to get nice deployments. At full glide, the Sabre2 flies a bit flatter than the Spectre. In deep brakes, I think their maximum glide is about equal. I've not had very much trouble flying home from long spots on the Spectre (or the Sabre2 for that matter). The turning characteristics seem similar. I think the Sabre2 has a little stiffer front riser pressure. I tend to lose more altitude in a front-riser turn on the Sabre2. If I do a 90-degree turn on a front riser (plus some harness input), the Spectre seems to lose 270-290 ft in about 5 seconds; the Sabre2 loses about 220-240 ft in about 6 seconds. They are both quite responsive on toggles and you will be able to get pretty dizzy. If you are interested in CRW the Spectre is probably a better choice. The flare on the Sabre2 seems a bit stronger. Although I'm not really interested in high-performance landings and will readily defer to someone else on this topic, I think you could learn to do that quite well on either type of canopy. I quite like both canopies; I fly a Spectre 210 now. You might also consider the Pilot (similar to the Sabre2) and the Triathlon (sort of like a Spectre). Hope this information helps you out. With that being said, I am in no way qualified to give you advice. Please speak with your instructors! /gdm

You know, I almost got that embroidered on the side of my rig, as a kind of a subtle little reminder. Then I decided that it was too geeky for words. :) I truly do want to know what that equation says. Please interpret. Sure. It's the classical lift equation. It says that the lift (L) is one-half the air density (rho) times the velocity (V) squared times the lift coefficient (Cl -- more on this later) times the area of the wing (A). The lift coefficient is a way to collapse a lot of complex aerodynamical interdependencies (like wing shape, the viscosity of the air, air compressibility, etc.) into one nice variable. For given air conditions and an object, we have to determine a value for Cl: for simple situations this can be done mathematically but in general this is determined by experimentation. As an aside, one-half the air density times the velocity squared has a special name (dynamic pressure) and is used elsewhere (Bernoulli's equation comes immediately to mind). Hope that helps. :)

You know, I almost got that embroidered on the side of my rig, as a kind of a subtle little reminder. Then I decided that it was too geeky for words. :)

I just flew with a rig from DCA to OAK -- alas, I didn't have a gear bag to put it in (oops) so I carried it bare. No problem whatsoever; the TSA guy checked the picture against the Cypres2 card and was satisfied. He said he "marked the image" to show other screeners what a sport rig looks like. The entire process added maybe 60 seconds to the security screening procedure. I think, however, that your experience will be very dependent on what airport you fly out of and the experience and comfort level of the screener you get. Best of luck!

Disclaimer: I've done this, but my jump numbers are low. You should seek further training from your instructor(s) before you take any of my advice. I've stalled a Sabre2 210 (loaded at about 1.1) by taking two wraps on the toggles, and I learned a lot about how canopies stop and restart flight. I'd tried on several occasions before to stall without taking a wrap on the brake lines, and I couldn't really get the canopy to do anything but fly "mushy." Taking a wrap on the toggles really does quite a bit. At some point the wing seems to think twice about this flight thing, and the end cells collapse and start to curve inwards. The next steps happen very, very fast: once the center cells decide to stop flying, that's it, they STOP. The canopy then starts to fold up on itself, there's a strong feeling like you're falling backwards -- the end state feels like falling quite fast while towing a huge nylon streamer. You must recover smoothly from the stall and let your hands up absolutely evenly. I didn't do that part quite right, and induced a quite terrifying spinup as half the canopy inflated, the other half stayed deflated, and about a dozen twists got put in the lines. I very clearly remember thinking "well, this one's fucked, where's that red pillow?" before checking altitude and starting to fix it (please note that I initiated this maneuver at about 6000' and was fully recovered by about 5000'). What scares me the most about this is that I can easily envision a case in which your hands are pinned by the wrapped line and it's difficult to reach the cutaway handle. That would be a bad way to go in; although I haven't tried a rear-riser stall yet, I plan to do so this weekend if I get a chance. Just my two cents.

In sunny California and kind of thinking of heading southwards to check out one of the LA area drop zones (Perris or Lake Elsinore). Probably can only make it for one day -- have to be back up in SF on Sunday. Stuff I'm looking for in particular -- cool atmosphere, mellow people, good rental gear (I jump Sabre2 or Spectre 210s -- if only RWS would finish my container forthwith I wouldn't have this problem!), and an overall acceptance of people who generally suck but are trying to get better. I mostly stay on my belly, but would be highly interested in some small CReW stuff if coaching is available. Anyone have any thoughts on this matter of clearly vital importance?

After about 30 jumps on my Paratec FreeZR, I'm quite pleased with it. The helmet itself seems well-constructed, although I am not sure how much impact protection you actually get from these shells. The interior padding is quite comfortable and there's a fair amount of reinforcing foam. The interior padding has about five pieces (back of head, top of head, forehead, left cheekpiece, right cheekpiece) which are stowed with Velcro, so you can just pop a panel out and replace it with a larger or smaller one to semi-customize the fit to your head. This helmet is also most spacious. It's quite wide, which for people with big noggins like me is excellent. Ventilation is pretty good, with two vents on the front and two pass-through vents on the rear (the front vents make you look a bit like a giant bug, but hey) give you pretty good ventilation in freefall. I haven't had any significant fogging even on fairly cold Virginia early spring mornings. The real selling point, I think, on this helmet is the fact that the visor is actually big enough to see out of. The peripheral vision is incredible, whether you're turning points or flying your canopy. The visor release mechanism consists of two metal studs, one on each side, that fit through holes in the visor -- this sounds shadier than it is, the latch mechanism is very secure. You must actuate the latch on both sides of the helmet to get the lid open; it takes both hands or some practice. I can do it in gloves without trouble. The latching process has a very positive feel. I always jump with glasses and haven't had a problem (a big plus for nearsighted me). The chin strap is pretty good, but there's nowhere to tuck the excess material, and it works itself a little bit loose after every few jumps. Unfortunately, you get no guidance from the manufacturer on anything. No visor replacement instructions, no manual, you're on your own as far as care goes...kind of suboptimal. The one thing that I wish this helmet had was a way to snug the airflow padding on the bottom of it (the velcro side-tab system on the Oxygn A3, for example, works very well). I haven't had a problem, I just wish it was a little bit closer fit around the throat. Other than that, great helmet. No complaints -- I love being able to see what's going on around me in freefall while still wearing a full-face.

Disclaimer: I am a rank novice and you should take my advice with a big grain of salt. I think you should ground yourself for a week or two -- there's going to be a lot of air pressure on your legs in freefall, and that is hard to emulate on the ground. It'd be a shame for you to get up in the air and lose your primary control surfaces...and even worse to try and land on painful, fatigued quadriceps. The sky will wait...it's not going anywhere. Let yourself heal...this might be a great time to get in some packing practice.