pchapman

'Bill von's' checklist is an oldie that still makes a fair bit of sense. Just checked and saw he first posted it in rec.skydiving in 2003, and on dropzone.com too, with more details: https://www.dropzone.com/articles/safety/downsizing-checklist-r32/ I'm sure plenty of jumpers haven't done most of the steps, so it isn't like the OP is the odd one out, but they are good things to consider. Mind you, just working on learning these sort of things have dangers of their own. (While not directly related, I recall a couple people breaking ankles at the local DZ while participating in basic Flight-1 canopy skills camps.) But to re-emphasize: in the OP's particular case, the knotted brake line might lock that brake line into having 'some brakes on', to a variable amount. Landing on rears with one brake partially set, preventing a full speed approach to landing, can become a lot tougher than doing it brakes free. That starts to be a whole new ballgame, and changes the equations when considering whether to land vs. chop. One certainly can also practice landing from a little bit of brake on approach, but that again adds risk in practice while trying to reduce risk in an emergency. The USPA SIM mentioned flaring from "slow (braked) flight" in a section on downsizing, or at least some years ago it did. Don't overdo it though, as it would be easy to run out of flare power if the canopy is slowed too much on the approach!

Ouch. Hope you can still find it. Kudos to anyone like you willing to educate others after a screwup -- even if it was just a tiny, momentary lapse in focus. (I did something not quite the same but with similar effect once. Locked up one toggle but that side was still effectively at full flight -- So I was able to land the Icarus FX canopy with one toggle and one riser. Not a big deal even if such 'mixed controls' is not typically recommended. Was your canopy still braked a fair bit on one side, which would complicate any flare? I assume your canopy was more ground hungry / twitchier / more highly loaded than my early generation crossbrace.)

shredvideo.com AI based, automates the editing, processing is on the DZ's computer, provides a web page link for the customer to download pics & vids, integrates with Burble manifest software, etc. Haven't tried it myself but saw it at a DZ I've been to.

Yeah, I've been at a big Ontario DZ that mandates sliding landing (although accepts standups in high winds). But it does depend on the canopy a lot too -- Sigma canopies tend to be suited to sliding landings rather than standups.

Fair enough if it was implied that the airbag was to be used for normal civilian application. But it looks like it is being marketed more to the military, for heavy loads / night / crappy landing areas. Some of the pics show a military tandem, trailing a kit bag on a line. Looks like the airbag is like a paragliding airbag, which have been around for a long time, self inflating from an opening at the front, but with the added design feature to be held closed in freefall.

In any case I think we agree that one shouldn't forget to be ready to PLF, even if one moved on to also using sliding landings, a landing technique considered to be 'more advanced' (due to it being learned later, and being associated with cool canopies).

Yes and no. I'm not going against you here but am putting it in a different way: I would say sliding is superior for high speed landings in a general sense-- but as you would agree, there are limitations, where PLF's are better. I'd far rather slide a fast downwinder under a crossbraced canopy, than PLF and go tumbling along. But there are those limitations: High vertical speed requires a PLF, and a PLF is good in rough terrain where you don't want to pile into a rock hard clump of dirt or whatever, while sliding with one's body down low.

A lot of people slide in landings without any special jumpsuit additions. Things to note: - Certainly some landing areas get very hard or are bumpy, making the situation trickier. - Normally one tries to slide while twisted a bit to the side, trying to slide on one butt cheek. (Pretty much the 'baseball slide' if I have the terminology right.) Thus if you drop down suddenly a bit, or you hit a bump, you don't smack down straight on your tailbone or compress the spine as suddenly. It might still hurt, but the shock to the spine will be less. - Some jumpsuits actually have padding and not just heavy duty cordura or ballistic cloth on the butt area. But that tends to be pants for tandem instructors. And if the instructor slides or sits down, it tends to be without that twist I mentioned, due to having the student there. - Part of the sliding landing is to gradually transfer weight from the canopy to the ground. So if coming it at speed, some of the slide will be with legs out in front, sliding with one's shoes, without one's butt actually being on the ground yet. Eventually yes as one slows down, the side of the leg and butt will be sliding on the ground too. But one tries to delay that. - So padding can help, but it is more about technique than padding!

To educate oneself more and try to understand the source of the issues better, to be a better informed consumer, before discussing it with the manufacturer? To piss off those who cry "Won't somebody think of the children?", I mean "Why didn't you contact the manufacturer first?" ?

A tight yoke & shoulder area on the rig could make it harder to move your shoulder blade area back, which in turn restricts how easily one can reach in behind one's back. But that's just guessing so getting a buddy to watch & record pulls on the ground is clearly the way to go.

I don't expect riggers to start adding Collins lanyards. I'm wondering if some companies will add Collins lanyards to their MARD rigs. The rigs with MARDs that didn't have or license the Skyhook have always been without the safety feature of the Collins lanyard. (Although it also adds complexities that in rare cases add to the danger, the issue of 'back loading causing a partial cutaway if the reserve bag falls out'.) Not having a Collins lanyard didn't stop companies from marketing their MARDs, or indeed even RSLs in general. Some might say that riser breakage issues are not a serious problem nowadays with reinforced mini risers and better understanding of packing zero P canopies. Or a company might have an RSL that is less susceptible to activating the reserve in case of riser breakage, by placing the RSL ring lower down on the riser compared to the old days. (E.g. Mirage says in their manual that if using their TRAP MARD, to always use Mirage main risers that are built that way.) So will they choose to reconfigure their rigs for Collins lanyards (and have the RSL on the appropriate side for that)? Will be interesting to see where the industry goes with it.

I'm also a jumper familiar with F-111 style 7 cells. I'll give a stab at the issue of reserve flaring, without being any kind of expert: Reserves tend to not have a lot of energy to convert into a long duration flare, which is both because they are high drag compared to modern main canopies, and may fly flatter than more ground hungry canopies. (Earlier reserves like the original Ravens, perhaps the most popular of the late 1980s, are especially flat trimmed and if at higher loadings, tend to lack much flare power, and have high stall points on the toggles. But you don't see them around much any more.) I have seen a jumper on his first reserve ride, who wasn't familiar with 7 cell F-111, have a terrible landing. On a small modern reserve like a PD126, he started to feed in his flare gradually and progressively, from higher up, as one might do while casually planing out a main. He ran out of airspeed and flare power while still some ways from the ground and thumped in, only avoiding injury by landing in muddy ground. That being said, it isn't like all the jumpers trained in the last decades under ZP student canopies are all smashing in when they first land a small reserve. Even a ZP student canopy, at typical low wing loadings, is going to need a shorter sharper flare than one will use later in one's skydiving career. One does want to think about one's reserve flare & hopefully practice it higher up. A shorter, sharper flare, started closer to the ground, will be what is needed. It can still be so-called 2-stage to evaluate how it is going and finish it off, but the total duration of the flare isn't going to be very long! (Would I go as far as Riggerrob saying a reserve is similar to a Sabre 1 of similar size? Hmm, I don't think I'd go that far. I think my Sabre 1 135 does plane out way better than a PD reserve of similar size. But still, I see the point: As long as you treat the reserve like a canopy that isn't by modern standards a ground hungry super-swooper, and start the flare closer to the ground and quicker, that will help.) PD has some useful info in their documents on their canopies' flight characteristics. A couple relevant quotes: For the PD Reserve: For the PD Optimum, which is supposed to be easier to land:

Good point. And to clarify, the real point is that it doesn't just make noise when you're supposed to break off, but is saying things all the way down. That's why one would notice early if there's a problem with it.

1. In the old days, nobody worried about exactly what altitude to make turns at. Guidelines on downwind / base / final turns are just rough numbers to help people get used to what is reasonable. And always make your turns to conform to other parachute traffic, and by your actual flightpath over the ground, with the aim of getting into the landing zone. Never robotically make a turn just because your altimeter says a particular number. 200 to 400 feet is fine for turning final and over time you'll get a visual feel for whether you are on the low or high end, and get a feel for what works for you. That being said, most jumpers have gone digital and many also have audible alarms for under canopy altitude checkpoints. That's for regular folks too, and not just competition canopy pilots. 2. Used to looking at your wrist for altitude? Great! That's what you are supposed to do. An audible altimeter is supposed to be an aid only, not your primary way of deciding when to deploy. That being said, people do get very used to relying on their audibles to signal breakoff and pull altitudes. That's just the way it is, but people should still be using their eyes and altimeters to help confirm their altitudes, even if much of the time their eyes are focused on the formation work they are doing. 3. A good digital alti to get? Sorry I can't help, I'm old school....

Cypres has had bulletins and recalls too. Yet Vigil had quite a few more bulletins and issues. But bulletins have been pretty much non existent for quite a few years. Cypres still seems to have the best firing logic and algorithms, based on the little info that's out there. Vigil's were a little simplistic based on info that came out during some of the incidents. Both companies have been arrogant about their capabilities, although both provide great user service. But in any case, both have performed very well in recent years in practice. I personally still trust Cypres a little more, but none of the big 3 brands now are frowned on.

I tried what I guess are some skateboard shoes (DC's) but don't like them --- Seemed to have very little padding to absorb any vertical shock. Just the harder rubber outer sole & an insole. Maybe that's something about keeping feet close to the skateboard without thick shock absorption? So running out a landing on hard ground. Maybe someone with more experience with either skate shoes or using them in skydiving can comment. A bunch of people do use them, but didn't work for me. Maybe I'm just more sensitive to that. Running shoes with flatter soles and no big chunky treads, that worked for me for sliding in, both for Sigma tandems and for swoops.

Yeah not very practical. It just gets complex. (Just like this reply did for me...) In theory if there were a DZ with tons of funding (eg military) you could be lent a reserve canopy set up to use as a main. "You have a Smart 150 in your rig? Well, we have a PD 143 set up here, that would at least be similar." There would be complexities because a reserve doesn't normally have the deployment bag attached. (So you need a specially built reserve, or static lining the jump, or removable deployment system, or someone else chasing the d-bag.) Sometimes there are big boogies where manufacturers bring reserves set up to be tried out as mains, but then you need to be around such a big skydiving event. But if you want to actually cut away from a parachute, then you need a 3rd canopy, a reserve, on the system. You can have the reserve to test in its proper place on your back -- which makes putting a real reserve on your belly more complex, especially to have it fully legal. Or you could have the reserve to test on you belly, which keeps your 'last reserve' in your rig as normal, but then the deployment for the test canopy won't be like a real reserve. Either way, having 3 canopies makes the gear and handles and procedures and crap that your wearing more complex and less suited to a newbie. Maybe more dangerous than a real cutaway after a mal! (There was even a World Champion doing a stunt jump for a commercial about 25 years ago, with 3 canopies, who screwed up the order he pulled stuff and died. An unusual case but 3 canopies does get complex.) And even if you set up everything to cutaway to a reserve to test flying it, there won't be nearly the same stress level as if you were having an actual malfunction. So then ideally you'd at least do something like pop one toggle on the main to get yourself spinning around before cutting away. Reserves do fly a little different than the ZP canopies people are used to today. A small F-111 style canopy will tend to have a shorter, sharper flare motion, not a long gradual flare motion. It used to be that people were used to F-111 style canopies from their student days, but now they don't get that. So I do get a little concerned about newer jumpers these days knowing how to properly flare their reserve. At least people learn that they should do practice flares under their reserve when actually flying it after a malfunction. All in all, it gets complex. So in the sport it is considered reasonable to just spend one's time practicing on the ground. Hanging harnesses are good, handle checks on all jumps are good. And you don't buy a reserve that is way smaller than what you are used to jumping as a main.

You're also adding the drag of the wingsuiter (at what body position?), and it is way down low on the whole canopy & pilot system, which also tends to angle the canopy more nose down. So I think that's a different situation overall; it is about more than just more weight There are unmanned military canopy systems that fly just fine at wing loadings of 5 or 10 without dropping out of the sky. "And now back to your regularly scheduled novice wing loading arguments."

You're also adding the drag of the wingsuiter (at what body position?), and it is way down low on the whole canopy & pilot system, which also tends to angle the canopy more nose down. So I think that's a different situation overall; it is about more than just more weight There are unmanned military canopy systems that fly just fine at wing loadings of 5 or 10 without dropping out of the sky. "And now back to your regularly scheduled novice wing loading arguments."

That's almost troll like over-simplicity, typical right wing thinking that I see so often. "Let's never talk about racism because it could be taken as an excuse, and never talk about the USA's failures because then it makes us sound 100% evil and weak, let's never talk about...[whatever]" Something can exist without being the cause of 100% of all effects. Many factors can affect how things happen. You might as well say, "Let's never talk about workers being sick because then workers can blame any issue they have at work on being sick. It gives an excuse for failure". Sure, someone can be silly and can blame all of their problems on X,Y, or Z, but that doesn't mean X, Y, and Z don't actually exist. Yup, troll... on the level of "If the Jewish Holocaust were real, why are there still Jews around?"

You've had a bunch of crap here Brent but I do find one of your comparisons more interesting: North Carolina (apparently locked down) vs. Tennessee (apparently not locked down) I don't know the actual lockdown conditions; I'm just taking it as you presented it. Tennessee did have a higher peak than NC -- the last big peak for both of them being early in January (presumably from xmas holidays), but Tennessee has indeed brought the cases down by a greater fraction, AND has a slightly lower case load now. (I won't show all the numbers but the two states are #9 and #15 on the list at the moment using Johns Hopkins 7 day average case loads, viewed at this news site: https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/covid-19-in-the-u-s-how-do-canada-s-provinces-rank-against-american-states-1.5051033) So yes Brent -- NC vs. Tennessee is a valid situation to ponder. Both states have a somewhat similar rural/urban population (I looked online), and they are neighboring east-west (which gets rid of some of the 'very different climate' issues with other comparisons), but other details are unknown to me. Also remember that us non-right-wingers do have plenty of issues with lockdowns too, as there are so many variations of both lockdowns and non-lockdowns restrictions and actual behaviour. (E.g., "Why can a giant box store selling some food stay open when a small store that doesn't, has to stay closed?" or "Why are ski slopes closed here but not elsewhere - how bad is the risk outdoors even given that one has to share chairlifts to some extent?" ... with the usual caveats about all indoor places restricting capacity / distancing / not having people lounging around indoors for long periods. )

Yeah that's the quick answer. Especially at a high level, the fundamental question of "what is a license for?" gets even bigger than it is at other levels. Would the E license actually be useful in selecting people for something? (e.g, "You want on this 40 way head down? Oh, you have an E license, great, you're practically automatically selected." That's unlikely to work when skills get so specialized at higher levels.) At lower levels, licenses can be more useful for selecting people. (e.g., "C license or higher for this very tight landing area") Is it about being an expert in at least one thing? Or a broad range of stuff? (e.g., fulfilling at least 10 out of a possible 20 qualifications) Or is it just a sort of a big scavenger hunt for bragging rights? (e.g, "You were world champion in a freefly team? Haha, but you never did a wingsuit jump in your life so you can't qualify as an Expert. I'm an Expert because I've done a bunch of different things including my night CRW water jump using oxygen equipment with gear I rigged myself!") Canada's CSPA used to have an E license until maybe 25 years ago before it was discontinued. While it did cover some useful and broad ranges of experience (like instructing, rigging, being in competitions, and the important-in-the-old-days disciplines of RW and accuracy), it was a bit of a scavenger hunt thing (e.g, 5 water landings), so only a dozen or so people ever got them. They can keep the license but otherwise the license no longer exists.

I’ll join in on the pedantry: I accept that people say things like “1.5 to 1” or write “1.5:1”. Yes we understand what they mean (so their language has worked), but it is a messy way to state things and shouldn’t be encouraged in formal use. It is entirely redundant to say something like “a wing loading of 1.5 to 1” when one could just say “a wing loading of 1.5”. Either way, units are missing and we assume that one is using US standards. It isn’t a true ratio of the same units on both sides of the equation -- you aren’t comparing square feet of one thing to square feet of another thing. The units are different, pounds vs. square feet. Using a ratio in this situation is as dumb as saying that you inflated your car tires to “32:1”.

"Better pick the right day of the week, and hope you get lucky with the statistics" Because I'm seeing 7 day average cases per million, as of Feb 4, of 430 for Florida, and 394 for California. (California = better) But yes the 1 day figures are 359 for Florida and 371 for California. (California = worse) On the other, hand go back 2 days, and you get 490 for Florida on the 2nd of Feb and 465 for California. (California = better) I think the 7 day averages are better than the daily numbers that bounce around a lot. I'd say the two states are doing similarly, with a slight edge for California. (My source was a Canadian news source that used this data: "U.S. data is collected daily from the COVID-19 Data Repository by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University. ") I haven't been active in this thread but just wanted to do one of those checks, where you see whether the "other side's" numbers are bullshit or not. Yours aren't a lie, but aren't the best choice, so turn out to be somewhat deceptive. Perhaps inadvertently; but most of us know by know that 7 day averages are generally better measure of trends. Edit: I haven't looked into other factors like length of lockdowns, prior peak case loads (California did have it worse), etc.

There are so many different factors involved, it gets confusing and I don't know the answers either. Some variations: 1. RiggerLee mentioned, "In terms of toggle pressure nose down means lighter toggles and flatter canopies heavier pressure." I can't say how it is in general, but I recall one counter example. Have an old, large F-111 canopy (Titan 265) that I used to use for accuracy. It had high toggle pressure. I added an extra rapide link at each front riser (and even played with using 2 extras), so the canopy trimmed flatter and flew slower. The toggle pressure in turn went DOWN and was more pleasant to work in deep brakes. 2. Sometimes comparing a steep and shallow trimmed canopy is confounded by different styles and sizes of canopy. For example, one doesn't normally get to compare a (non-existent) Katana 280 against a Navigator 280. And is one comparing how much force it takes to pull a front riser down half an inch, or is one thinking of the final effect of pulling a front riser down? After all, even if a small and large canopy have the exact same front riser forces, you might think, "Ugh, this big canopy is a boat, I'm hauling down the front riser and almost nothing is happening", while on the small canopy you whip nearly instantly into a sharp diving turn and even if you need a solid pull, you only need to do it for a second.