pchapman

And indeed you weren't helped, in that you found a document on the Cypres USA site that didn't make it clear that it was only about Cypres 1's and not Cypres 2's. The change was made so that nobody would get grumpy about having to send off their unit in their main jump season, just because their unit was built in a particular month.

There's a plus or minus 6 month window for the servicing, so for example if it had been manufactured in November 2005, you would be able to jump it until the end of April. It can be noted on the card that while the pack job is OK to 180 days (or whatever is appropriate for where you live), the AAD expiry date can also be noted, which in most places invalidates the pack job unless the non-maintained AAD is removed. If it were built mid 2005 or earlier though, it would have to go in for service before a rigger would pack it up.

That's a good point, if you are finding such situations. (Of course, you are talking about newer used stuff, rather than 5-10 year old gear). Part of the problem may be the whole MSRP vs dealer price situation: Someone looks at the suggested new retail prices online, thinks to themselves "there's no way I can afford that!". They only start looking for used gear, because they don't realize that it isn't just a case of looking at the price shown on the web, but contacting dealers too.

Another skydiving group, if you want to go with someone local rather than in all those nice sunny warm places, is http://www.dicenzo.ca/descenders/. They have experience with flag jumps. Clearly one will have a rather different video background depending on the location and time of year! Depending on the size of the flag and location, you could go with anything from some regular skydivers with video gear, to professional demonstration teams experienced with jumping large flags and qualified to jump into tight landing locations. There's a lot of options. It can be a bit of a challenge to find a spot or get permission to jump in a place that's right near or over a big city. Dubai is unusually fortunate in that way, what with a dropzone and airfield right out in front of the skyscrapers...

Just too big of a project for the market, given that most people jump over relatively flat terrain. So the need hasn't been there. It isn't that it wouldn't occasionally be useful. Some DZ's have some minor hill or slope nearby, and there is the issue whether to adjust the AAD upwards for all jumps at the DZ or accept that you might be screwed if you need an AAD on a jumprun over that 300 ft higher ground. Not quite as tough as using GPS to try to sense an accurate altitude for firing purposes, would be to use it only to determine 2-D position over the ground, checking a terrain database for maximum ground level within grid squares of whatever resolution is available. Then it becomes like some TAWS system for aircraft. Instead of the AAD deciding to fire 800 or whatever feet above the takeoff point, it would be deciding to fire 800 ft above the maximum terrain altitude in the grid square. I have no idea how the resolution of GPS terrain databases is these days, although it is probably pretty decent. Obviously you don't want a crappy database where the AAD fires when one jumps a safe distance off to the side of a hill. Who would most benefit from some GPS integrated AAD? If you were some special forces dude jumping at night through clouds to some hillside position in Afghanistan, you'd probably already have a nice GPS terrain display and maybe suggested flight path commands to start with. (After all, there are already plenty of systems for sending cargo down under parachutes with their own GPS and algorithms to steer themselves to landing.) In such terrain conditions, having a GPS enabled AAD might be more useful than just setting it at X thousand feet above sea level in barometric height. But you'd probably want money in military style quantities to develop a reliable GPS enabled AAD, even if the concept is simple.

@quagmirian Medium sized Ravens that aren't overloaded are OK. I and others have jumped old 7-cell F-111 canopies of 170-220 size in recent years for some old time CRW etc, and they get you down. Landings can take an aggressive flare and can be a bit of a thump -- one may not get the feather light landing people are used to these days, where one planes out perfectly and puts feet down with zero speed. Depends also how baffed the canopy is, but it is rare to find a crisp 25 year old F-111 canopy. Front risering for speed can help. (I prefer low 360 toggle hooks, but that doesn't work in every pattern!) With a bit slower speed and perhaps poorer glide ratio than modern medium sized canopies, it can be perhaps a little harder to get back from poor spots with a turbine aircraft, but nothing worse than anyone with a big canopy has to deal with. At least with Dacron lined canopies, lines last quite a while and small trim changes not much of an issue. Finding replacement line sets for an old canopy can be tough, but likely not a problem, as by the time the lines need changing, the canopy will be in pretty poor condition anyway.

+1

So the rig is an '82, main '95, reserve '88. Reserve model not clear. As for the main, it might be another in the Flight Concepts line, like the Maverick, but I thought the Maverick applied only to the 200 model. A nice canopy, for something F-111. There's a lot more here at issue than the reserve age. Yes nylon degrades over time, but only very very slowly. That's more to do with strength, while porosity (affecting openings and landings) is affected more by a lot of repacking. Opinions vary about old reserves. Often the feeling against old reserves was because of old technology and design strength, not specifically because of age. So someone might not want to jump a Swift reserve (a fairly early model square reserve), even if it were new, but not be particularly uncomfortable with a 20 year old PD reserve, a strong and solidly built design with good flare characteristics. But how long do you go? Do you start getting uncomfortable with a 30 year old reserve? If so, the cost of that 26 year old one should be in line with whatever one thinks it'll be worth 4 years from now. On the one hand, I don't mind using old skydiving gear. (I jumped my Maverick a dozen times this past year.) On the other hand, like many people, I'm wary of newbies getting really old gear just because it is cheap. It isn't that it is wrong. I've known jumpers, within the last decade, whose first main canopy was F-111. Landings were tougher than for those who had ZP, and they didn't "progress" as fast in learning to fly modern canopies, but maybe that wasn't the point. The canopy served its purpose of letting the jumper get down safely and skydive economically. Still, jumping an F-111 main is an unusual choice for a newbie and not typically recommended. A rig from the early 80s (unless already upgraded) won't be nearly as good for riser and bridle protection as newer ones, won't be ready to install an AAD in, and so may well need some rigging upgrades (and thus money) to meet typical modern standards. Others could join this thread and write for pages and pages here when it comes to all the factors in gear selection and weighing different aspects of different rigs and canopies. Especially for really old stuff, where there's so much more variation from what is typical these days. While I might well be comfortable in using that rig for certain types of skydiving ... the simple answer for you would be to leave it be. If someone bought the rig, I'd expect it to be dirt cheap. The market for it, as a complete rig, really is very close to zero. Edit: While obviously there are always new people entering the sport who will over time learn more, it is pretty common for the experienced skydiver on this site to be rolling their eyes at yet another newbie saying, "Should I buy this? It's cheap!", when talking about some ancient piece of crap. That's just the way it is.

That was a popular video for discussion on dz.com a few years back, the classic one of some confusion between pilot and jumpers about jump run, with the green light turning on early, before crossing a Swiss ridge that defined the edge of a deep valley. ... But I haven't found the thread again. Someone will. Moral was: Look before you leap, especially if jumprun takes you over tall mountains. And you wouldn't adjust your altis (unless you were planning to land at or swoop the top of the mountain or something). I have heard of people making slight adjustments to their AADs, when at an airport with slightly higher terrain around. But you aren't going to set it at +10,000' for mountains...

What the heck, although I've been on DZ.com way too much the last couple days, I'll offer my limited experience with chops: Without going into the messy analysis of different scenarios and of different imprecise data (video and Protrack for example), I've come to a few preliminary conclusions, at least for myself, for typical situations: This is based on 3 actual mals (on an 88 or 75 sq. ft canopy for someone 145-155lbs without gear) and 2 intentional cutaways (on a 37 or 200) going to an F-111 main not unlike a reserve. -- From chop to having a fully open, flying reserve is going to be about 700' -- for a diving spinning mal from which one flips to belly to earth and then pulls the reserve. (No RSL ) Maybe it'll be 600' to initial full inflation, but being conservative or allowing for the canopy to really be flying pretty steady a little after snapping open, it'll be 700' -- The time from chop to reserve pull in that sort of situation will be 3-4 seconds. Mentally that sort of works out: In the first second, one falls away. To flip to belly to wind might take 2 seconds, where the first second of the chop might be a productive part of getting flipped over, or just a second wasted as one just tumbles away while getting a feel for the wind and going to a better body position. Then one more second to reach in and pull. So there's the total of 3 or 4 seconds. One isn't trying to get perfectly stable, exactly level with zero yaw rate, but just to be generally belly to the wind. Of course if one wants to save altitude, the chop and pull can follow each other within a second, just enough to make sure one doesn't have a hard pull on the cutaway. -- My Protrack records suggest the vertical speed during a spinning mal with a fairly small canopy might be something around 50 or 60 mph (when not waiting around forever with it), so about 80 or 90 fps. To be conservative, not wanting to underestimate altitude loss, lets call it 100 ft lost per second during a fairly high performance spinning mal. The altitudes and times work out: [Edited to correct a mistake in what I was trying to say] Starting with a somewhat under 100 fps descent rate before starting freefall again, then increasing speed while taking 3-4 seconds from chop to reserve pull, one could blow through 400'. Then add on 300' or so for reserve deployment, so it all matches up with the previously mentioned 700' total. -- The only time I had a messy fall away from a mal that maybe took a little more time, was from a slower speed mal, where I was still in a sitting position when I chopped (= massive dearch). When I dropped and twisted to face the ground I still had some momentum and poor aerodynamic control, so ended up going around once more (total 1 1/2 rotations) to get belly to earth for the pull. For the lower speed mal, the total distance from chop to open canopy was still no more than 700', as for higher speed spinning mals. The lower speed compensated for the worse body control at lower speed. (On the other hand, I've had a chop during a low speed mal, going straight to reserve with a good body position, where probably only 300-350' were lost. As with the numbers earlier, knock off up to 100' if one wants 'first full inflation'. It is hard to get exact timings and numbers, but in any case it looked fast enough that someone on the ground later asked if I had a Skyhook.) -- As for for how long it takes to decide to cutaway, I don't know, but I'd guess it could easily take 3-4 seconds when one adds up realistic times to perceive the opening, decide it really isn't fixable, go in for one's handles, and then in a coordinated manner, start pulling stuff. If you are are more primed to chop because you are low, who knows, I'd guess 2.5 to 3 sec. To actually go through the whole cycle of observing, deciding, and reacting, I wouldn't claim anything lower than that for most situations.

And there were the Atair Cobalts which either did not have crossports in the 3rd and 6th ribs in from the ends, dividing the 9 cell in thirds. (Although that is what they advertised, some apparently had very small crossports in those ribs). They were trying to promote having the center fill first, without opening up the outer wings, thus staging the opening. Opinions were rather mixed whether they achieved that or not! Yet cross ports were enthusiastically adopted by early squares, after beginning without them. It must have helped to fill those end cells, particularly on opening. Some canopies (which? how many?) don't bother with crossports in the center rib. I suppose if a canopy (a) opens well enough anyway for whatever reason, (b) doesn't have a tendency for the end cells to tuck (because of good design regarding angle of attack and twist in the wing), then crossports won't be really needed unless one gets into the rare situation of actually having a tip fold in. So my gut reaction about that odd South African ZP thing that RiggerLee mentioned, is that it would be perfectly fine normally ... but I'd still be more wary of it in turbulence. "Multiple" is what Lee meant. Yes, that does look like playing with the laser cutter input data.

I had always wondered about the legality of some of the seatbelt installations. Indeed, all belts on the floor are non-standard to begin with, so you've clarified that the issue might be that approvals for 3, 4, or 5 sets of floor belts are out there, but the OP doesn't happen to have one in-hand for 5. Interesting about the door STCs. A little odd, because having a well engineered door is completely unrelated to the number of jumpers inside.

So what's stopping you now? If some inspector says the aircraft was only certified for 4 seats and thus 4 occupants, then you'd be stuck at 3 skydivers, so that may not be the issue. Around where I am, I'm used to often having 5 jumpers in a 182, but those are in widebody 182's that provide sufficient space. Whatever works according to the W&B is allowed, and manifest keeps records of the weight for every load. It only works where the jumpers are below average weight overall. But that's for Transport Canada, not FAA in the States.

Looks like he is wearing a seat pack, and then perhaps a second seat pack somehow on his back, as a reserve on a second harness. An interesting photo in any case.

I don't really have much argument with you at all. It is indeed a big question whether one can beat the average. So far with a few non-RSL chops in my few thousand jumps, I've done OK. After I'm done with skydiving we'll see whether I always managed to avoid impacting the planet too hard. Whether a skydiver, BASE jumper, skier, or just a driver on icy roads, we always accept certain risks and avoid others, and pretty much always figure we can "pull it off", whatever we're doing. Sometimes we're right, sometimes we're not, and others' opinions will differ on whether we should have tried in the first place. While I personally kind of like the choice of when to pull my reserve, it isn't that big a benefit to most people -- whether in terms of certain advantages or simple enjoyment -- so yes: In most cases the simplest thing to do these days is to just hook up your RSL with or without MARD. While I tend to recommend that when someone asks, I'm also clearly going to mention where it can cause the occasional problem. (I haven't looked at order forms lately, but I would think RSL's are getting closer to being standard equipment... or at least, rigs always being RSL ready. In the old days, it was harder to recommend RSL's, because a used rig often wasn't set up for it anyway, making arguments moot.) This has indeed been a fairly civil discussion on the various benefits and disadvantages of RSLs.

Yeah that's the point. If WE walked into the Pecos Parachute School from Fandango, we'd be thinking how cool all this aviation history was. Whuffos, maybe not so much.

Interesting about how Pitt Meadows did make use of a tunnel for static line progression students. At the moment I'm kind of thinking that, as many have said, there would be a great benefit for a static line progression student to get tunnel before the 15 sec delays. That's where the in-freefall stability & movement skills become important. But I can still see a great benefit too, as a few have noted, if a student manages to get around to doing tunnel earlier, before freefall. (As long as the student's progression isn't drawn out so long that they don't get to long freefalls for 6 months after doing tunnel, and so forget some of the lessons. But any very drawn out progression will allow lessons to be lost.) Tunnel may not help you climb out or step off a plane, but it will give you a feel for what to experience after stepping off. So it teaches something about the end point you are trying to achieve, even if you still have to figure out the bits in the middle. (Jumpers do have to deal with subterminal air on exit, but still.) It may be instinctive to us feel what chest to wind is, to adopt a neutral body position, not flail in the air, and not be bothered by all the wind pressure and noise. But all of that can be lacking in students, and can be taught in the tunnel.

Oh, that's that Dubai swoop comp collapse from Dec 2011, on, what was it, a Petra. Others will remember more but basically it was a) turbulence, combined with b) a somewhat experimental ultra high performance canopy that neither you nor I nor 99.9% of skydivers would ever be allowed to jump. Search for the "JPX Petra - stability issues?" thread. Yes it was a good Skyhook advertisement in effect.

Some skydivers have over the years been used to large, reasonably professional organizations, near large markets. But many of us have been used to things like dropzones operating out of trailers or barns, sometimes with only portable toilets or or unheated, home made toilet buildings around. Even if there's a million dollar turbine aircraft sitting outside and not just C-182's, that's where the money goes, and operating out of some ancient WWII hangar with peeling paint isn't totally out of the ordinary. So it can take some adjusting to get used the idea of actually providing a nice environment for the customer. The gut feeling can be, "Just because someone off the street is dropping $500 on their experience today, what right do those whuffos have to expect to walk into a nice building or have clean washrooms? This is AVIATION, don't they realize that?" It's hard to remember that even a $2 purchase at a coffee shop chain will likely get you a modern if rather over-trafficed washroom. It can be hard for some skydivers to get their head around customer expectations from outside the skydiving world.

Yes I agree that it is a loser. The difference in the comparisons is that one has to get super lucky to get thrown clear of an accident and be saved when not wearing a seatbelt. There's no skill involved. In the RSL case, in all but very unusual cases, you just have to remain normally aware and do normal reserve procedures that even students learn, to not die without an RSL. (Of course, we all screw up at some point.) Thus the no-seatbelt example is indeed a terrible one, no matter where one is on the RSL argument. Just to point out (no matter where one stands in the argument), the USPA SIM is still slightly ambivalent about RSLs. While "An RSL is recommended for all experienced jumpers", it also cautions that "c. RSLs can complicate certain emergency procedures", listing 7 scenarios including, "(3) unstable cutaway, although statistics show that chances are better from an unstable reserve deployment than delaying after a cutaway". Despite the issues occasionally caused by RSL's, it is pretty amazing how well reserves do open even when activated unstably. Only very very occasionally will they do something really bad, like blow up the reserve (like in some tandem side spin scenario with risers very uneven; I don't recall the details). Not sure about lineover stats though, from unstable main or reserve openings. Rarer in any case. Even with bridles pulling across shoulders and infront of faces, and all that kind of stuff people report from unstable openings (with or without RSL), usually there's no snag with a freebag and the reserve opens with no more than nuisance twists. All the same, I can't say I'm a big fan of unstable reserve openings. In some ideal world we'd have a handle setup that would give us the choice between "I want a reserve now!" and "I know I have time, just chop me and I'll pull the reserve myself (unless I do happen to get really low because I can't get the handle.)"

From statistical averages, using an RSL does seem to be safer, but there are still some risks to RSL's. I don't know about RSL's specifically, but unstable reserve deployments do occasionally seem to cause problems. (Accident reports online often don't mention details like what activated the reserve.) For example, one can look at the list of "reserve problem" fatalities in the DZ.com database. Most have nothing to do with RSL's or instability, but some do. There's stuff in there like "Possible [reserve] entanglement with the GoPro camera ", "On video he was observed deploying his reserve in a head down orientation. The reserve opened with multiple line twists and was spinning." Or there was a specific RSL related accident, one that happened to "just a student" who screwed up, but could theoretically happen with a regular jumper who, say, a baglock mal start to clear just at the wrong moment: "the student exited well, but when he went to pull the Practice Ripcord, he instead mistakenly pulled his cutaway handle. The jerk from the release of the deploying main parachute flipped him on his back and when the RSL released his reserve in this position, the pilot chute shot between his legs and tangled around one of his legs. The pilot chute remained tangled around his leg until impact" (Students don't clear bridle entanglements well, but it still isn't a healthy situation for any jumper.) So maybe one might say that any RSL + reserve entanglement issues appear to be extremely rare, but I wouldn't say nobody ever went in because of it. The whole RSL argument to some degree comes down to whether one thinks one is better than average. IF you can always remain altitude aware in a mal, and always find the 2nd handle, and not chop so low so an AAD won't work, then you'll probably be safer without the RSL. But that's the big, big "IF"...

It's remarkable how poor the marketing of some rigs can be. After you mentioned cut-in laterals for the Vector, I checked their web site on their products, and order form, and there's no mention of the feature at all. Nothing in the manual either. Maybe you'd see it if you dug through their photo galleries. Didn't even know they offered rigs without the hard lateral stabilizers, one of those design features long associated with RWS/UPT. Whatever. I modified my own Racer and Vector II to give them cut in laterals.

I was just curious about the actual costs to upgrade to stainless from cad plated, so looked at what it would be for a whole rig - 2 sets of 3-rings, leg hardware, and something suitable for hip rings, and 1 set for chest hardware. I just used standard buying in bulk prices in ParaGear (20+ items etc), which a skydiving company should be able to beat. However the catalogue doesn't show some of the more specialized hardware that some manufacturers use (e.g. for nicer hip rings), that may cost more. The total difference between stainless and cad plated came out to something like $102. So in a strict technical sense, a $200 price for an upgrade is not worth it. On the other hand, its not like you can install it all yourself, and the long term value to you may be well worth the extra profit you're giving the company.

Phew! One drogue, 34 others. I was wondering if there would be 35 drogues out, and a giant pile of waivers down on the ground.

(not @ sparky specifically) In the debate about listing how lack of an RSL "contributed to a fatality" -- which has been going on for many years -- one problem is one of truth vs. the whole truth. It may be completely true that having a specific safety device would have saved the person. But whether to mention it depends on ones norms for the sport. One could as well finish a bunch of car crash reports with, "Lack of a 5 point harness, roll bars, and fire resistant suit contributed to the fatality." Well yes, but it is hardly worth mentioning unless you expect most cars to have that. And yes, there has been a growing awareness by many that RSL's can be very useful for most jumpers, even if others insist that not having one shouldn't be treated as a crime. The other issue is that it is annoying if an accident report is so often finished with a statement only about one particular contributing cause. At the very end of the report, the concluding statement becomes "Lack of an RSL contributed..." or "An AAD would have prevented..." But if one mentions one contributing cause, then shouldn't one mention others as well? Aviation accident reports try to list all the major contributing causes. So a bunch of skydiving accident reports could be changed to something like this, to satisfy more people: "One contributing factor was the lack of an RSL. Others were [....]. The primary cause appears to have been the jumper's inappropriately slow reaction to the malfunction, when sufficient time and altitude were available." Nonetheless, exactly how to write the conclusions to an accident report is still up for debate. Large professional aviation safety organizations in different countries have used different formats over the years and continue to vary in how they state "causes", "probable causes", "contributing factors", "findings", "findings as to risk", etc. To put it it in a less formal and a not always as technically accurate way, "The jumper's stupidity contributed to the accident.".... You could throw that on the end of quite a few skydiving accident reports. That's how we often get ourselves in trouble.