riggerrob

The RAF and RCAF did use a few Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses during World War 2. They were acquired through the Lend -Lease program. The RAF tended to shuffle long-range B-17s and B-25 to the Battle of the Atlantic where their longer-range helped close the Mid-Atlantic Gap to U-boats. Early in the war, U-boats had learned to fear any ship convoy escorted by aircraft ... even US Navy blimps. The American-made parachutes that came with those American-made airplanes were probably packed in accordance with American (e.g USAAF) manuals. They MIGHT have added a few RAF tricks when packing, but remember that during the war, parachute packers barely had enough time to learn one method of packing one type of parachute. Cross-training was a rare luxury during the hustle of combat patrols.

Possible. Since they did not issue bail-out bottles during World War 2, it is quite probable that the victim lost consciousness for a while on the way down. He probably only regained his senses when the trees got big (e.g. below 3,000 feet above ground level). While opening at 30,000 feet would be painfully hard, that is mainly due to the high airspeed when you pull the ripcord. As you descend into "oxygen levels" (below 15,000') the thicker air slows your freefall rate. Early pilot emergency parachutes used Type 1 deployment which had all of the suspension lines stowed in the pack tray. This meant random canopy deployment, then a sever jolt when you fell to the end of the suspension lines. The first innovation was the French sleeve that hid the canopy fabric from the wind until you fell to line stretch. Sleeves became popular among skydivers during the 1950s.

Please note that the United Church of Canada and the Anglican Church of Canada have been hit with massive lawsuits over child-abuse that occurred at residential schools administered by those churches. Some of the lawsuits have forced Canadian churches to sell properties to pay off debts.

Wow! A second time that Slim King and I agree! Because males - who have grown beyond puberty - have advantages in terms of bone density and muscle-mass - they are doomed to exceed intact females. By "intact" I mean women who were born with female genitalia and have never experienced gender-altering surgery, hormone blockers, etc. The whole reason that we have gender-specific leagues, masters, POPs, etc. is to allow amateur athletes to continue to compete so that they still have a chance at winning medals on level playing fields. We can agree that a Masters tennis player will never win at the World Meet against first-seed 20-somethings. The goal of most segregated sports is to encourage everyone to practice a sport because practicing any sport improves your health, improves your morale and extends your life-expectancy.

When you consider that the owner of any small business needs skills in: writing a business plan, obtaining financing, purchasing, maintaining airplanes, maintaining buildings and grounds, janitorial, taking out the trash, interior decorating, hiring staff, training staff, firing staff, monitoring weather, marketing, public relations, sweet-talking the local city council, sweet-talking airport managers, sweet-talking the FAA, etc. ...... the list of required skill is long and complex with skydiving skills being late in the process .... I have done every job on a DZ (pilot, airplane mechanic, janitor, laying sod, rigger, instructor, coach, load-organizer, manifest, etc.) except management. management requires far more headaches then I am willing to attempt.

Yes, the Javelin sizing chart lists canopy square footage/area. However, canopy pack volume can vary widely depending upon the materials. Dacron suspension lines pack bulkier than Spectra and Spectra is bulkier than the latest HMA/Vectran, etc. Also different canopy fabrics have different pack volumes. For example, a speed-wing/pond-swooping canopy made of heavily-coated sail-cloth will pack much bigger than a similar canopy made of ZPX (low pack volume) 1.1 once fabric. The extra ribs in cross-braced canopies also increase pack volume. The good news is that the Javelin sizing manual tries to accommodate all those variables by being biased towards the most popular canopies in are square foot range. For example, since the most popular 47 square foot canopies have extra ribs, sail cloth and skinny suspension lines, all those factors were considered before they were listed on the Javelin canopy compatibility chart. Oh! And if the chart says that a particular combination will be "stupid tight", be nice to your packer and buy the next larger size container.

Judging by your mention of Mount Ararat, you live in Turkey (sp?). Also difficult to tell whether you are simply asking about flying a speed-wing all the way down a tall mountain, or something more complex. If you are merely asking about flying a speed-wing all the way down a tall mountain, it is possible qonce you have mastered the basics of launching and landing on the "bunny-hill." The term "bunny hill" comes from the sport of downhill/snow skiing where beginners learn the basics on a short, shallow slope before tackling the entire mountain. Mind you, tall mountains have complex weather patterns. Some of those weather patterns can be learned form books (e.g Dennis Piggot), but still require a lifetime of observation. You will notice that the best speed-wing/para-glider/hang-glider/sail-plane pilots are the weather observers. OTOH it would be unwise for you to try freefall without some training by an experienced skydiving instructor. You do not know what you do not know. Even a few minutes in a vertical wind tunnel will teach you the basics of falling stable. Falling stable helps a lot at opening time as it vastly increases the chances that your parachute will open correctly.

Wow! The Javelin factory (aka. Sunpath) deleted those line stows so long ago that I forgot about them. I have only packed a few rounds into Javelins and they all had full-stow diapers (Type 3 or Type 4). On a practical level, Type 1 deployment (with all line stows in the pack tray) may have worked at the low airspeeds that were fashionable when we skydived from pterodactyls (humor) or AN-2 biplanes that fly backwards in a gentle breeze (more humor). But ever since freefall speeds exceeded 100 knots, we really needed diapers that would hold the skirt closed until we reached line stretch. While Strong's Type 1 diaper (2 or 3 stows of the left line group on the diaper with the rest in the pack tray) provides a huge improvement in reliability, it is difficult to teach to young riggers. I only pack Type 2 diapers into Strong Para-Cushions. Strong Para-Cushions need those line stows to serve as kicker-plates/launching pads for their pilot-chutes. For almost every other container, I just stow all the lines on the diaper. On a practical level, Type 1 deployment fell out of fashion during the 1970s. For all practical purposes, Type 1 deployment is obsolete. While working for Butler, I manufactured hundreds of Type 4 diapers and sewed them onto the full range of older round canopies.

Scary how the hard-core right-wing of any religion travels full-circle until it resembles the hard-core left-wing of another religion. They both become rigid dictatorships/autocracies that brutally suppress any deviation from their narrow world-view. Their narrow world-view alienates many possible sympathizers. Remember how the United States of America was founded in the wake of the Protestant Reformation, Thirty Years War, Catholic Reformation, etc. that laid waste to large swaths of Germany and sparked a bloody Civil War in England. That is why the Constitution of the USA specifically forbids Congress from making any rules related to religion. I respect the American constitution because it tries to pre-empt any religious war in the USA by separating church and state.

Yes, Javelin was originally TSOed to accept round or square reserves. Javelin was originally TSOed back durign the mid-1980s when round reserves (e.g. Strong 26' LoPo) were the norm. It was not until the late 1980s that round reserves fell out of fashion due to acid-mesh. The only limitation is that round reserves need Type 3 or Type 4 diapers - with all suspension lines stowed on the diaper. Also keep in mind that medium or large volume round reserves will not fit into the smaller Javelins that are currently fashionable. Check the PIA Canopy Volume Chart before attempting to install any round reserve. Then compare that with the Javelin canopy volume compatibility chart. I have packed dozens of round reserves (mostly Strong 26 foot LoPos, but also a few ^%$#@! Phantoms) into Javelins. Please only pack round reserves for skydivers who have already made a few dozen jumps on rounds. Younger jumpers do not know what they do not know about landing round canopies. Rounds require specific landing techniques that cannot be taught in one hour. I have packed even more Javelins with square reserves: PD, Raven, Smart, Swift, Tempo, etc. Finally, I have installed most types of automatic activation devices (Argus, Astra, FXC12000, Maars, Vigil, etc.) into Javelins.

Lots of arm muscle. May I suggest training in the gymnasium 3 or 4 times per week to include chin-ups, curls, push-ups, parallel-bar dips, etc. Technique also helps a lot. Personally, I like to pull toggles to shoulder level, then rotate my elbows up so that I am using more muscles (pectorals, latimus dorsi, trapesius, etc. to finish the bottom half of the flare.

I share your curiosity about double-keel Paradactyls. Please let me know when yours is airworthy. I have 4 jumps on a Delta II and one on a Paradactyl. I also have a PZ-81 and a Russian-made Telka (sp?) gathering dust in my closet.

As an update - with a Canadian perspective - I recently attended Operation Pegasus Jump 2023 at Campbell River, B.C. Canada. Most of the attendees were retired military types. Back when we served, marijuana was strictly illegal. If the military police ever caught you smoking marijuana, hashish, crack, etc. they would arrest you and send you to jail. After release from jail, you would get a dishonorable discharge which would make it impossible to get any gov't job after that. Fast forward to 2023 and Op. Pegasus sponsors included several cannibbus dispensaries. Veterans' Affairs will cheerfully mail THC to you if your medical doctor prescribes it for PTSD, insomnia, depression, etc. Most nights, I chew on a CBN gummy to help me fall asleep. During Op Pegasus, organizers announced that consumption of alcohol or other recreational drugs had to wait until the last jump-plane took off in the evening. Participants were mature enough to respect that rule. After the last airplane took off, several cracked a beer or lit a (marijuana) joint on airport property. I only drank near-beer, because that is all that I can handle these days. One of the reasons that I left the Canadian Armed Forces was that I was struggling with all the legal recreational drugs: caffeine, nicotene and alcohol, but smoking a bit of marijuana or hashish on weekends. It took me a few more years to quit drinking alcohol, but I am still addicted to caffeine. In the end, I have nothing but contempt for most rules written about recreational drugs. I just don't drink or smoke within smelling range of police. I just know that some us can handle recreational drugs, while others of us cannot handle recreational drugs. Some of us are wise enough to quit recreational drugs before they kill us. I have ven less respect for the politicians - mostly lawyers - who write drug laws.

Nurses and doctors work hard enough already. The last thing they need is frivolous accusations of mal-practice. Please note that the majority of mal-practice law-suits are launched by people who have no intention or means to pay their medical bills. The leading cause of bankruptsy - in the USA - is a major accident or major illness. Welcome to the only country in the First-World without federal health care insurance. Make no mistake, Canadians, Swedes, etc. pay heavily for medical insurance, but we also enjoy tiny medical bills after even the worst train-wreck.

My first guess would be dehydration. Remember to sip plenty of water throughout the day.

Agreed! The most dangerous turn is a low altitude, 90 degree toggle-whip. The canopy does a steep dive towards the dirt as it tries to regain equilibrium/stable flight. That recovery arc is long and difficult to predict. It takes hundreds of turns to fine-tune toggle-whip turns. The canopy may or may not recover before impact. Toggle-hooks were fashionable among the "Stiletto pilots" frequenting Perris Valley 30 years ago. Too many of them left the DZ in ambulances. Later we learned that front-riser turns result in less altitude loss and provide more opportunities to "bail out" of a poor approach. That is why modern swoopers use a combination of toggles, front risers, rear risers, steering toggles and leg-strap inputs to fine-tune their speed-increasing turns.

A few years back, an accompanied freefall student showed up with a newly-purchased full-face helmet. We asked him if he could see both his release and reserve handles and demonstrate grabbing them. Once he demonstrated being able to see and grab both handles, we took him up for a jump wearing his new helmet. He performed well on the rest of his accompanied freefall jumps and graduated. The key is being able to watch your fingers wrap around the release and reserve handles.

Remind your rigger to keep a bit of tension on your reserve lines. A bit of tension will help keep suspension lines neat and reduce the risk of tension knots.

Well ... if you want to be a theological nit-picker ... most Muslims are technically Jews since they include the Jewish Old Testaments in their Holy Koran. The Koranic stories about Adam, Eve, Moses, Noah, Abraham, etc. were originally written by Jews. Similarly, Muslims can be counted as Christians since they recognize Jesus Christ and important prophet-of-god, just not the most important or last prophet-of-god.

Agreed! Too much of woke culture is really censor ship by the lower class. Odd that the lower class would advocate censorship when one of the the few they still have is their voice. ??????? Whenever a politician stoops to "muck-raking" about their competitors, I immediately drop them to priority-last on the list of people that I am willing to vote for. Then I ignore all their speeches for the rest of the election.

The first step to making most canopies open softer is to roll the nose. If you want to roll-pack the entire canopy, then look at the Strong Dual Hawk packing manual. I have seen a few civilians roll-pack an entire canopy by laying the canopy on its side and rolling the nose past the B lines. Then they grab all the steering lines and roll them forward past the C lines.

Both my grand-fathers were Protestants. One was an Orangeman, making him a Protestant with a capital "P." He attended the Anglican church on Sunday mornings, then devoted the afternoon to telling us everything that was wrong with the Roman Catholics in Quebec. I was tired of his rants before I became a teenager. I never liked Catholic crucifixes. They always scared me. More recently I have come to the conclusion that Catholic crucifixes were invented by Romans after they stopped throwing early Christians to the lions (Colliseum) and adopted Christianity as the state religion. Crucifixion was invented by the Romans to publicly punish and humiliate non-conformists (see gladiator revolt). Crucifixion was a slow and painful and miserable way to die. Crucifixion was right up there with public castration, disembowelment, drawing-and-quartering, etc. Criminals were publicly crucified to "encourage the others" to conform to gov't laws.

No worries. I freely admit that while I might understand the basics of Newtonian Physics, later quantum theory goes completely over my head.

Biblical food prohibitions are based upon scientific fact ... the only problem is that they were written many centuries before humans understood germ theory, etc. Pigs sometimes carry trichinella ring worms and other diseases that can be passed to humans. Shell-fish are periodically infected with red-tide, which is poisonous to humans. If you do not understand the cycle of red-tide, the simple answer is to not eat shell-fish. Similarly, keeping separate sets of kitchen tools for meat and fish reduces the risk of cross-contamination. IOW Ancient rabbis were the food inspectors of their day. They kept the most dangerous foods off the market.