jojo0815

what you are looking for is packcloth. it's only called parapack in skydiving. and I am not shopping for fabrics any more these days. stopped making pants because it's too much work for very little pay.

hey Dog, first off that fabric is way too expensive. I have bought 600D cordura for around $ 4.00/yard at the garment district in LA. cool thing there is you can look at and feel the stuff there. I started making freefly pants a while ago and ended up getting all my supplies there in person. parapack and cordura is very similar. if you just have a little project order some @ paragear. hope this helps

I agree, a complete line dump would be really bad but very unlikely at any rate. I think what most people refer to as line dump is commonly also known as "body position" :). deploying a single or even multiple stows out of sequence can cause tension knots or a hard opening due to excessive snatch force at linestretch. if you are using a freestow bag with too little tension on the mouth of the bag both of those scenarios are pretty likely.

I had Hornet 170 for my first canopy. never had a slammer with it but the line kit was out of trim. I tried to get a new line set from PISA and found out they had just been bought by aerodyne. called aerodyne for a new line set and after sending my hornet back to them they called me back to offer me 40% off or so on a new canopy if they can keep the hornet. I think for a while Aerodyne was producing in SA but ownership of Aerodyne has tragically changed since then and I think the SA factory is now doing military stuff. please correct me if I am wrong!. besides the packing tabs, the pilot and the hornet do have more similarities and fly very much alike too. the slider on the pilot is huge though compared to the Hornet. both the canopies seem to have the most response on top of the toggle stroke. for a lot of people that means the flare is less forgiving because if you flare too soon you aint got much left. I would say it just takes some getting used to. another side effect is that if your brake lines are too short and you do front riser dives, the tail deflection induced by the short brake lines has more of an effect than on other canopies that have the effective toggle range deeper in the stroke. oh, bucking can be dangerous! fix it :)

true that.... I just got a V-2 not too long ago but I usually flock in my Acro. unless I flock with other V-2's I have been able to stay with every dive and you can have so much fun with the Acro. why isn't the Acro in the poll? still the best all around suit IMHO!!! :P

thanks Terry everyone thank you so much as well. now let me gete to work... Jojo

I need a manual or the Advanced Air Sports Products FFE-202 container... anyone?

Hey Glen.... got my Dagger 150 in and it even fits in my rig :)... I was a little worried about that after unwrapping it. it's just like xmas, but better :). but to answer the question of the original poster. I don't like flying hp canopies with the WS because I had some really bad experiences. wasn't the last WS fatality on a stilettto? I know a bunch of people that do fly elipticals but I have been flying strictly F-111 7-cells with my WS and no pain is not involved if you deploy in full flight. you might have a couple of brisk ones until you figure out the packjob and body position but I am getting consistent 300 foot openings from pitch to full canopy. why does the FAA hard deck say 2K... damn ;). make sure you have a 9ft bridle and 30-33" PC for full flight deployments! also brings a total new dimension to hop and pops.... I have gotten like 51 seconds from 3.6K and 73 or so from just under 5K in my matter and acro respectively. a whole lot of fun for $ 12.00! for canopies I flew a PD-176 with a dacron line kit and a Icarus reserve demo. the spectra lines can give you more of a jolt during the opening so the dacron lines are preferred but none of my WS openings are anywhere near where a terminal reserve ride would be...

I really owe everyone but especially Kelly an apology. this is a bad place to bring personal grudges to... especially if they are not even your own. I shouldn't have used this forum for a personal rant and realized that bad things only create bad things. my initial irritation was with one of the posters not with VSE. Kelly builds awesome rigs, my 2nd choice when it comes to containers. he comes before all the big boys in the business. again... sorry for trying to make this a pissing contest. I think I am going to shut up now.

This post kinda infuriates me for a couple of reasons. first of all no rig out there id the be-all of rigging. the infinity is definitely one of the nicer rigs out there but so are many others. I would really like to take the chance and comment some of your points in your post. first off I don't think the harness design is all that smart. the main lift web kinks right above the laterals which ultimately will weaken the lift-web. the new floating laterals are nice but far away from being new. in fact the way the laterals are attached to the containers on the Infinity is not very durable. I have seen them starting to tear at the seam on several rigs now. that also happens on mirages though. the new leg-pads that come with the floating laterals are very bulky and ugly, my opinion.... back in the day manufacturers used to sandwich the cutaway handles between the lift-web which caused some real hard chops with spinning mals. infinity moved the pillow to the inside of the lift-web. Rigging innovations has a sheath around the lift-web that hosts the handle so there is no load on the pocket. suddenly I see Infinitys with the handle sandwiched again. some Infinitys I pack have type 7 front risers and type 8 rear risers on the reserve. some have type 7 for both. their container design is very long so short people will have a hard time getting the rig to fit right. again that's just an esthetics thing. the reserve system is fairly easy to pack, but you have to be aware of the fact that they use a kicker flap for the reserve PC and the AAD cutter sits below that flap. Airtech suggests for all manufacturers to place the cutter above the PC. reason for that being that with a reserve closing loop that is too long can cause it to hang up between the PC and the reserve container flaps. that's why Mirage issued their service bulletin and they moved the cutter above the PC. it's not really a design flaw in the Mirage container but a rigging error and so it can happen to other rigs that have the cutter below the reserve PC. that includes the vector 3 and the infinity. the main flap design is not bad but not revolutionary either. in fact it's very similar to what Sunpath has used for a long time now. the new angled tab is not bad but it is now integrated with the top main flap which also happens to be the bottom reserve flap. so if you are sitting on the floor in the plane a lot and your flap gets damaged it is not something that's easily replaced. the reason why they don't break any more is because they use a thicker stiffener now. at least the old system was field replaceable. the secondary riser covers are nice but again if your packer doesn't know how to use them they can look very ugly... still I like the idea. the riser covers... oh boy now I am getting started. you said they are user friendly... I beg to differ. I believe you could still get a riser lock if you place your main riser under the first flap before you close it. the reason this doesn't happen is because the riser covers are cut very loosely. and yes.... THEY DO COME OPEN! my freefly partner has 3 Infinitys. on his newest one one of the riser covers is cut 1/4 inch loser than the other one. we do a side by side track off after our routine and I would say 80% of the time I look over and see his riser cover flapping in the wind. at our boogie we asked Kelly personally about it and he told me that was just manufacturing tolerance and there was no way it was more than 1/8 of an inch. I went and got my ruler out and measured just over 1/4 inch... he didn't really have an answer for that, not even offered to fix it or anything... after that I have kept an eye on every infinity that comes through our DZ, I have seen a lot of riser covers being lose. I do believe that they have a lot of tolerance in their manufacturing lately but I also think that there is a design flaw in the riser cover pocket. look at the way RI is doing that... in my opinion a way better solution. I just got some replacement cutaway handles in from Infinity that had the velcro sewn to the wrong side of the handle. back to my freefly partner... his first Infinity was a used container and he loved it. he then ordered a custom rig after a while and was measured by Kelly himself! the lift-web is way too long and the leg-pads are too. he jumped the rig anyway for a while. he then wanted a turn rig so he ordered another one. using the same measurements the rig now fits a lot better but the leg-pads are too short. he asked Kelly for new leg-pads and he sent them to him. you would think the manufacturer knows how the rig he ordered 6 months ago would look like. his leg pads are all black but the replacement ones are black with blue binding tape. he also mentioned the other rig being too big but no action was ever taken. I guess I have rambled long enough now... I am not going to tell you how great the rig I jump is or anything like that. don't believe anybody that has a rig that is apparently made by god himself. even that guy gets sloppy some times. as long as he admits it and tries to correct the mistakes that's all good... blue skies... be safe and don't bounce!

I can only secind that. I have about 700 jumps on a freestow bag with 2 locking stows and in fact the openings feel smoother and cleaner. you can't even really feel the canopy coming off your back like that.

dude I so know how that feels like. I was GC for a local A when one of the guys decided not to jump. the climb is tight and it was a big guy. so the first jumper told him to stash it and throw it and he would let everyone know. which of course he "forgot". since this was a night jump we couldn't distinguish between PC and stash bag flutter. impact sounded very real... holy shit what a night.

I have examined this problem before but I think it all comes down to opinions at this point. personally I think pointing the pin down would favor this mal because the bridle could snag it on its way out and put some considerable pressure on the tip of the pin. pointing the pin up would let the bridle deflect off the pin and clear. another reason why I think a pin that is pointed down is a bad idea is that when you are sitting in the plane leaning against the wall or sitting on the floor, it could push your pin out and would favor a premature deployment. pointing it up would force it to be punched into the closing loop. also remember that the parachute manual says to place the pin half way into the loop. again when freeflying I would rather risk a PC in tow than a premature. as for bridal routing, placing the bridal on top of the pin would mean the bridal would have to move out to the side first before it could snag anything. as for straight pins... I have seen a straight pin punch through a bridal on an Infinity. this happened after or during deployment though so all that happened was that the PC didn't collapse.

I would calculate the WL by the actual square footage. since this is how all the other manufacturers measure their reserves. be careful though, reserve WL is not like main WL. a reserve loaded at 1.4 is already heavily loaded and will be tricky to land. in your case i'd rather to with a 193 reserve. because even with the 176 it will still be 20 square feet less than your main. you don't want to be stacking odds against you by default. think about it... you have to chop, ergo you are probably low. add a bad spot to that and you are most likely to land off. now you don't have any wind indicators, uneven terrain and probably some obstacles too. do you really want to be downsizing right then? :)

look in the back of the paragear catalog. it has a pack volume chart that also states the PD reserve sizes and PIA sizes. I think it's measuring the top vs the bottom skin...

that depends greatly on the kind of canopy you are flying. the stall point during opening might be much lower than in full flight. there was this guy flying a Spectre 170, lineset was at the end of its life. I am sure there were multiple factors involved but bottom line is his canopy opened pretty hard after which it kept jellyfishing for a couple of seconds. his PC came down the front over the nose and looking up he thought he had a lineover, chopped it... and because it was my packjob I was called lineover for the next couple of months. we analyzed the video and figured out what really happened, no lineover :). I guess on low aspect ratio canopies this might be more pronounced as there is more pressure on the brake lines against the slider grommets as on higher aspect ratio canopies. always DO stowe your excess brake line though. one of our AFF instructors almost died a little while ago because the excess hitched around his main flap and caused a mal. he chopped it but the main didn't go. he ended up firing his reserve at about 800 feet and luckily it missed his main that was still attached there. there were line burns around his main flap. not fun!

actually that's a common misconception. having the excess point to the outside will place it deeper into the crease between the reserve tray and the riser cover. also setting the brake line to the inside will cause the lower part of your C-line to take some abuse from the slider instead of the whole brake line. especially with spectra lines that can result in less shrinkage of the brake line over time. this shrinkage could can cause your deployment brake settings to be so deep that your canopy will open in a stall eventually. setting the brake line to the inside can prolong that effect and you get more mileage out of your line set.

I have a 2001 Voodoo and I love it. I have made it my dedicated WS rig now. some people say that the shape of it aids cleaner aerodynamics over the back of your suit. my 2¢

I might be a little late but here it comes. I have gone through the same thing in the last 2 years. a lot of people have different opinions about how to downsize, how fast and what skills you should acquire before moving on to the next canopy. most conservative coaches have a hard time with their students because the students don't have the patients. Icarus Canopies' recommended WL for the Crossfire2 is 1.4-2.1 psf. I personally have jumped CF2's loaded at 1.2 and they are not that much fun. they are mushy when under loaded and all you are adding to your skydiving experience are the potential opening problems of an elliptical canopy. if you are flying let's say a Silhouette 170 right now and you go to a Safire2/Sabre2/Pilot of the same size you will have more glide, more penetration and more fun yes. if you are interested in HP landings you should learn them on a semi elliptical canopy. the simple reason for that is they are more forgiving. you can pull yourself out of the corner where you would have bounced on a HP canopy. you can get very decent swoops out of today's semi ellipticals and you don't have to deal with spinning line twists and such. personally I would suggest to get up to a 1.5 WL on a semi elliptical and then transition to an elliptical of the same size. going the fast lane with downsizing will not only be dangerous but it will also slow down your progression. I have seen that happen many times. and I agree on the ego thing. a lot of people go to an elliptical because it's cool. in reality they have no business on that canopy. as a rule of thumb.... don't go to an elliptical unless you have at least 500 jumps and don't even think about cross braces until at least 1000 jumps. definitely master one canopy before you go to the next one. I have 1000 jumps now and I still have a lot to learn on my CF2 that I am loading at 1.8 psf. Blue Skies... stay safe

I will be in Vegas this weekend for my GF's bday. any LV locals willing to take me out? PM me please, thx

very true indeed. I for myself don't like spectra except for closing loops. but it all depends on what you expect from your canopy. if you want performance I like vectran the best. it isn'tas bridle as HMA and doesn't go out of trim like spectra. for wingsuits I prefer dacron because I like fast openings.... i don;t mind the extra pack volume there. if you keep having hard openings it might be worth to pay a good packer to show you some tricks as well

I have just acquired a Tempo120 reserve and was wondering if anyone has a line trim chart so I can double check the brake settings before I pack it. greatly appreciated...

did that already here: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1785980

hi everybody.... I am really interested in the Acro from Phoenix Fly but they don't seem to have a demo suit that fits me. I was wondering if anyone out there [maybe even in the socal area] has one that would fit a person 5.8/150lbs that would be willing to let me fly it. I have a MTR3 to try for a trade

just got back from the MOAB boogie. HHad the chance to put a jump on a V1 and OMFG, this thing kicked my ass! but my GPS told me that my max ground speed was 148mph, considering a 25mph tail wind that is still faster than the plane! I so want one