pchapman

To summarize: Someone tested a rig using a home made knife blade cutter on the ground, with the cutter just under the pilot chute, so that he could easily do multiple tests. (So it doesn't quite represent a normal AAD setup.) Not sure of the rig, but it looks like an old Vector II. With a 110 mm long Cypres closing loop, when the loop was cut, the reserve container opened immediately. With a 125 mm loop, the same happened. With a 130 mm loop and the packed so the grommets zig zag and are not all lined up, the pilot chute did lock up the flaps and closing loop, bulging the flaps but not opening. Nothing happened for some seconds, until the rig was hit by hand and the pilot chute launched. A good example of how a long closing loop combined with poor packing, and with a loop cut away from the top of the loop, can delay a reserve opening.

Don't know if you are being facetious or what. Anyway... LCP = Liquid Crystal Polymer, one variant's trade name being Vectran. So I don't know if they just mean they are using Vectran, or have some other company's product available. Aerodyne seem to use a heck of a lot of Spectra so it is nice to see them using something else too.

In the USA Just that in non US countries we feel we are a little more free to have our own rules and ignore what some American company and its lawyers say. Some rules we follow, some we don't.

Ok, thanks for that clarification -- I missed recognizing that from your original statement although I could have guessed. That allows a much better comparison. We'd need more numbers to make a clearer distinction between regulars and one-timers in both sports, but going further into comparing skydiving and other sports, that's starting to diverge from the overall thread.

OK, I see that those are the A4 to UST dimensions for the brake cascades. For a quick glance at the differences in trim, it is handy to look at the A,B,C, and D line distances: Distance to A1 (center line), then additional distance to the B, C, and D lines: Storm-----112.5----3------9.75---19.75 CFStorm---111.75--3.125--10.5----20.5 So this confirms that the CF Storm has slightly shorter lines, but slightly steeper trim. (One has to be careful on the PD website as the Storm and CF Storm have separate product pages. The CF Storm is not seen as a variant of the regular Storm, although there is "Casual CF kit" for the regular Storm. The document on the Storm and CF Storm flight characteristics mentions the differences between the two canopies in terms of retractable PC, tail pocket, reinforcing etc, but totally fails to mention that there is any difference in line trim!)

Kayaking: Skydiving: I'll have to make a correction to your statements that kayaking and skydiving are similar in fatality rates. Let me explain: It is often tough to compare fatality rates, especially when the units in the data are different, as above. They may look about the same here but if an average skydiver were doing 100 jumps a year [edit: just as an example, not hard data], the skydiving fatality rate would be about 100 times higher than kayaking per participant. There's also the confusion in "per participant" rates when you combine those "in the sport" vs. those trying it just once. In skydiving there's a huge number of the latter, and I'm not sure how it is in kayaking. One can always look at risks per exposure vs. per year, and for regular participants vs. one timers. Doing just a quick calculation, let me double check the skydiving stats: Using USPA numbers, averaging from 2010-2012, there were about 19 non-student fatalities per year, for an average 34000 members. While not all members are jumping, if you want to use membership as the criteria, the fatality rate is 56 per 100k non-student participants. (And it would be higher for those actually jumping, and excluding advanced students who are members too.) So this is a measuring contest, in skydiving one might say we're very roughtly 100 times better than kayaking when it comes to killing ourselves. So while you may have something to contribute based on your leadership experience in another active sport with hazards to mitigate, we do need to recognize that the fatality rates are vastly different. Thanks.

So it is a planned wingsuit BASE jump sometime in the future after other training is done, by a young but very accomplished mountaineer. (Being BASE, this might have to move to Bonfire.) I didn't know there was enough of a 'rock drop' anywhere near the summit for a wingsuit launch, especially for high altitude air. I'm curious where the exit point will be. Wonder what the acceptable launch conditions will be - Not sure what kind of winds wingsuit BASE jumpers are handling these days. Finding calmer or smooth wind conditions can be tough on Everest, up so high in the atmosphere, but one does get light wind days. (Such as for paragliding launches that have been done up there.) If it can be pulled off, I guess the record for altitude that it would be beating, would be Singleman & Swan's Mt Meru record for BASE and BASE wingsuit altitude?

I'm being slightly facetious, but some danger and risk of death would be good. After all, going to Lodi to boost jump numbers is seen as a bit of a cheat in order to avoid "real life experience" which is what various semi-arbitrary jump number limits are indirectly trying to have people get. If someone gets the cheap jumps, they also get the no-hand-holding environment too. Many of us didn't get those kind of cheap jumps, so that might make a few of us a little less friendly to those "taking the easy route". On the other hand, it has been pointed out that blasting out a ton of jumps ... still gives you a ton of jumps and concentrated experience. One could as well do 150 jumps at one's local DZ and still "do the same jump 150 times", the same thing out of the same airplane in the same surroundings... except it would take all season and cost far more. Even my own DZO has made trips to Lodi, where jumps cost about 35% of what they do at home (not in the USA). But I haven't been there. So I will leave you to getting that real life experience on your own, sink or swim. I usually try to be helpful on dz.com, but am admittedly being a little harsh this time around. I'll leave others to offer more helpful advice.

I think you'll find other dictionary sources often relegate your #1 meaning to a lesser role or leaves it out entirely, although some do include it. Using the dictionary you chose, you seem to focus on one part of the definition and not all the other parts. That meaning of 'every day' also tends to be used in relation to things describing events, such as "everyday routine" or "everyday ocurrence" (to pick two seen as the examples in different dicationaries that support your interpretation), NOT describing a person who does some particular thing every day. Even if you say "This is an everyday task", whether you mean that it happens Monday to Friday on every day, or something that one might do often enough at work, the implication is of a routine, ordinary occurrence, and in itself does not imply unusual skills or qualifications. If you choose to pick one very specific variant meaning of the word while giving no hint and no context to indicate that you are NOT talking about a multiplicity of other meanings, you basically have ignored the meaning of the word. I hope not to have to continue this part of the conversation. I'll let others decide whether an "everyday jumper" or "everyday driver" or "everyday plumber" or "everyday Scrabble player" or "everyday snowmobiler" is usually expected to be someone 'ordinary' --- or instead is someone who has skills greater than the vast majority of others doing the same activity, due to their doing the activity far more than others, nearly every day. Either way, I don't think there will be many of these canopies around to borrow and try out, whether or not we jump on weekends or not.

Get semantic? Semantics about the meaning of things, and if you screw up the meaning, you haven't communicated worth shit. You might be a good canopy pilot or whatever, but you & sakeryzf weren't very good in communicating what you want to say. "Everyday" is a word that denotes ordinary or normal in the dictionary. The "everyday jumper" is probably someone doing 200 jumps a year or less. "Everyday" is not defined as "you must be doing a similar activity on similar high performance equipment pretty much every day for the past few years to have the skills". So if there is a Petra Lite 90, then if it is an "everyday" canopy it should at least be usable by any jumper who is already comfortable with 90 sq ft crossbraced canopies on the occasional weekend, and can use it in normal terminal jumping, with cameras on their head if they want. At least people have tried to clarify what they mean...

Well that challenged me to actually check some numbers. Using a micrometer I measured the front to back diameter of the top of three different harness rings. These aren't original engineering numbers, but just one person's measurements of rigs in service: RW-1 a standard big harness ring 6.87mm (.270") RW-8 a standard mini harness ring 6.04mm (.238") RW-7 the 'thin' mini harness ring, installed until maybe the mid 1990s but no later (As it was then considered to be too rough on risers due to its thin diameter -cheese cutter effect.. or at least that's what I heard. Still acceptable to use but a little frowned on I think.) 5.25mm (.207") Anyway, that puts the RW-8 mini ring as being 12% thinner than the RW-1 big ring. Not a huge difference but not negligible. How that actually affect 3-ring cutaway forces is going to be a more complex calculation based on geometry of the rings and the stretchable webbing. [edit] How does the RW-10 big harness ring that's sold now, compare to the traditional RW-1 big harness ring? It isn't clear, between ParaGear, Poynter's, and the Parachute Rigger Handbook.

It doesn't take long to find quotes such as the one below, from the US Consumer Products Safety Commission in 2010: Those whuffos who-over focus on a single "child" dying [correction: of course I meant:] getting badly injured in skydiving could be reminded of things like this. (Of course, 142 dead kids says nothing about participant fatality rates, nor addresses whether the activity is considered 'necessary' or 'unnecessary'. Society always accepts more carnage for things deemed normal to do, like driving in cars. To what degree the ATV use was 'just' recreational, vs. useful and normal backwoods & farm transportation, I don't know.)

Well stated. Even if jumpers aren't replacing things, they should at least have a plan for their gear, for the upcoming season. Based on how much they jump, are they going to need new items, and what's their plan for getting them? That can be anything from elastics, keepers, closing loops, dytter batteries, to planning when to get the brake lines replaced, a reline done, or replace the pilot chute. (Some lucky jumpers can just walk into a local gear store, while for others it means planning ahead and banding together with friends to make an order from ParaGear or Chuting Star.)

Sometimes the responses to newbies can be harsh, even if in your case you aren't asking any really silly questions. I think part of the frustration people have is that newbie questions tend to be so big, things that take a lot of explanation. We've pretty much had newbies ask, "So tell me everything about skydiving equipment." Not everyone has the time to answer those questions. Some questions are best answered a bit at a time, hanging around the dropzone on a rainy day or around the camp fire. But I figure that if I don't have the time to give a huge answer to some newbie question, I'll just ignore it; I won't go and tell the newbie that they are an idiot for asking. (Even if I'm actually rolling my eyes, "Not that question, AGAIN. Just go and jump and listen to your instructors.") As a newbie you get told to hold your questions for later. Some things you'll learn anyway from your instructors or from other skydivers. Some questions don't need to be answered before jump 1 or jump 10. It still isn't much fun for the newbie, to be told to stop asking so many damn questions, especially as normally it is good to be inquisitive and try to learn as much as possible in the sport. So to answer your question.... Yeah, just get into the sport and you'll see what's available and what people are doing. Most people want to do RW of some sort, because other than just having you in the sky (or with an instructor or two), it's cool to jump with others. When you are alone, there's no reference point in the sky, so you can be sloppy and sliding around. When someone else is there, then being able to precisely move 6" in a particular direction becomes important -- new challenges and skills. So even if your are more into working on personal skills than joining a team, jumping with others is a pretty normal way to work on your own skills, and have fun. Then people get into freeflying. There's plenty of simple stuff you can do without being an expert. Since the discipline has had time to develop, as often happens, the real experts are so very far out ahead of the rest of us. Like many, you'll start doing the freeflying solo. Maybe you'll do a bunch of jumps just trying to hold a sitting position in the sky, before you start joining someone else on a freefly jump. If you are doing freefly on your own and experimenting with different positions and maneuvers, you pretty much are doing freestyle. No need to wear tights though. The formal accuracy discipline nowadays is small and requires a specialized parachute and landing target, but everyone can work on accuracy in landing whatever parachute they have. You'll need to be signed off for some simple accuracy requirements to get your licenses. (Measured in yards and not a few centimetres.) Style is pretty dead, because it involved doing just a couple simple maneuvers (turns and backloops), that people had figured out in the 1950s, and then doing them fast and accurately. It can be a fun challenge, but people would rather explore a million other maneuvers they can do in the sky. CRW is a bit specialized and rare. It's hard to get into a discipline if nobody local is doing it, but if there are local jumpers involved, you can easily start learning with under 50 jumps. (Although offhand I don't recall what the US rules on licences are -- Countries differ, so in one place there's something you can't do until 200 jumps, and another its 50 jumps.) Swooping? Well, you don't have to go crazy about it because it can easily kill you. But it is pretty common that once you have gotten used to the speed of one parachute and landing it, wouldn't a smaller and faster one be more fun? BASE? Not technically illegal, except in National Parks, and some bridges. But so often it involves trespassing on private property. So BASE does tend to involve illegality, or else traveling around the country to a few legal sites. And there are plenty of disciplines that haven't traditionally been competition disciplines, like wingsuiting or tracking jumps. Lots of stuff to learn out there.

While drpeguy's comments haven't been debated much here, I'm starting to think plain old loop length is a big part of the pull force issue, like he said. Lubrication of the loop might just make a smaller contribution to the issue, whether well siliconed, not siliconed lately, or gritty with rocky dust. How much? 10%? 20%? Who knows. I was playing around with one modern rig over the last couple days, giving it a really tight loop, although only slightly shorter than it has been before, say 1/8". The rig was closed using a positive leverage device within the normal range of force, although the rig had to be worked along the way and the last flap was tough to close. Thus it was on the very tight side but likely nothing outside most riggers' experience. I could record various different pull forces for that rig. I have started the pin moving at 18 lbs, and one could well have stopped there. After all, riggers aren't required to actually pop the reserve to check pull force. But after the initial movement, the pull force to move the pin was more like 22lb. I bet the 18 vs. 22 difference was due to the very slight taper at the top end of the pin, before it gets really wide. That tapered area does go onto the grommet and to some degree allows the loop to 'slide downhill' when the pin starts to extract. That opens the possibility of having a legal 22 lb pull force noted, but an actual pull force to fully extract the pin some pounds higher. Going from sufficient silicone on the loop to almost too much silicone didn't have much effect, even if it were smeared onto the pin and grommet. At high loop tension, the metal on metal grinding forces stayed high and pull force didn't go down much. Leaving a rig for an hour or overnight is a commonly accepted way to allow things to compress and make it easier to close a rig or get a correct pull force. Sometimes leaving things a while lets pull force go up though. After noting a legal but high force to move the pin, e.g. in the 18-22 range, I left the rig overnight. Then I might still get a legal force to start the pin moving, but to almost extract the pin took 30-35 lbs. Hmm! The pull forces rather resembled those of the dusty rig that started all this thinking about pull force issues. The force is probably hardly noticeable for most people when moving an arm & ripcord handle with some momentum to the end of the ripcord slack, but still doesn't meet the rules about pull force. So then I kneaded the reserve container for 15 seconds, just like one might do repeatedly while closing flap after flap to close a rig. Voila, pull force was back to 20-22 to almost pop the pin. Leave it half an hour and the force starts to creep up again. So when a rig is closed, it can be totally legal, but pull 30-35 lbs later on. (Even without desert dust, and with lots of silicone on the loop). That would suggest the loop is "too tight" in some sense, but this is not detected other than by rigger feel for the loop length, or additional pull force tests beyond the legal one. I haven't checked the FAR's, but one would hope that when making the rules, they took into account that actual pull forces might be greater. Hopefully it is not illegal to jump a rig with higher pull forces, as long as it was closed legally. This was just some playing around with one particular rig and isn't real engineering, but brings up some pull force issues I don't see discussed, at least here on dz. (@erdnarob: I don't know what the owner of the rig in the original post was doing. But yes I suspect they weren't always landing on their feet, or were otherwise a little casual about handling their rig in the desert.)

Nuisances? Idiocy, more like it. Did you mean "nuances"? Never mind, "nuisances" works perfectly well too!

To expand on skydiverek's links, for the OP: Bill Booth says that the mechanical advantage of a small ring riser will be less with the large harness ring, than it would be for a small harness ring (because the latter is not quite as thick). But that it is OK as long as everything is built properly. In any case, while there are variations in how good various combinations of rings and riser designs are, having small riser rings on a large harness ring is "completely normal" and not considered incorrect.

I've seen just a few simple canopy flight simulators for use on one's home computer. For reference, this is the collection I know of, prior to hr0nix's one: A U of Waterloo student (now at Microsoft I think) had one in 2007 but the original online Flash simulator page is gone now; not sure if it is still out there somewhere. http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=2752602; A BASE jumping sim was once mentioned on dz.com. It includes the canopy flight: https://www.facebook.com/pages/BASE-Jumping-Game-formally-D3/447557740163 There's commercial software at http://staticlineinteractive.com/index.php but theres a free demo version. It got mentioned on dz at: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=3581184; Perhaps this can help for further development ideas, or for others trying to better understand the basics of flying the pattern.

But I think trolls are supposed to be doing it out of malice or mischief. I don't think it really counts just to be a newbie who has no clue of what the hot button issues in the sport are. (And then debates for a while until being more educated in the subject.) @ the OP: Certainly in skydiving there is some debate about when cameras could be used. Our camera rules system is a little antiquated, based on large cameras for solo jumpers; while really there isn't necessarily that much harm in having a small camera attached to a tandem student. There are plenty of details and matters to debate though. As for changing things, to some degree dropzones and we jumpers aren't going to want to give up a system where the only ones allowed to do photos & video in freefall for a student, are us, the contracted employees of the dropzone. Sort of a closed shop, and you're not in the union!

Damn, used to know 'Dr Dave' when he was in southern Ontario, and new to skydiving. Sometimes one doesn't get to catch up with old acquaintances.

Admittedly I didn't research it closely. Ideally I would have made a new loop and reclosed it right away to test the difference. Maybe it was a bit of everything, grit increasing friction where ever the pin and ripcord pressed against other structures. But it would be the loop where grit could get right into the material the most.

Newer jumper, vacation trip to the US. Yeah, there was a dust cloud when I opened the main pin cover flap. It wasn't like the rig was muddy or anything. It looked relatively normal, just that the mostly black rig was slightly faded. But if you vacuumed it, you would create a distinct stripe of more intense black between two areas of 'faded' black... @ docpop: Yes it was the loop, not the ripcord cable, that was siliconed. Still, grit in the housing might increase the pull force a little bit in any case.

I had a customer's rig come in that had a quite high reserve pull force when I opened it for repack, over 35 lbs. The jumper had been to Perris Valley and the rig was covered in fine grit/dust. The reserve loop was dry & gritty to the feel, like a fine sandpaper. Just opening a flap on the rig would create a little cloud of dust. (Dust of a mineral origin, not at all like household dust.) It was a rig with a really tight loop to begin with, I think one of those "22 lbs of pull force... after leaving it overnight" deals. The loop had been well lubricated at the previous repack. (While that is normally good, if the silicone's effect is subsequently neutralized, that won't be good for pull force.) So have riggers out there seen unusual increases in pull force, due to dirty rigs? Just curious. Usually the rigs I pack aren't used in the desert, and when I have come across one that was, it was never as dust coated as this one rig. (The rig got washed before the repack!)

Well Mr. C348, that was a great first post on dz.com. You don't owe us beer for that, but you do owe us any more good stories you have from the old days, for the History & Trivia forum. Really scary stories go into the "Scary stories from the old days?" thread. And the newbies would think that jumping rounds and only getting 7k would mean they went to Hell.

Thank you. Since they license the Skyhook, they've now decided to offer the split Collins lanyard, like UPT went to a few years ago, in case of badly timed near-simultaneous main & reserve openings. The key piece of the notice: