sheeks

I think the Mill-Spec version of the alliance rubber bands should be fine, i haven't been able to test with a fish scale yet but it's looking good

It appears the mill-spec bands despite being stretchier than i'm used to, don't seem to break as easy as the others i've ordered a fish scale and if it takes the required 8-12 pounds to undo the stows then i will jump them and see how well they hold up compared to the others

Do you double-wrap your tube stows? Some say not too, but it seems the lines can roll out easily otherwise

I've ordered the mill-spec ones too, and they stretch an insane amount and then remain stretched out rather than returning to their original size. Not good either so i guess we're all just kinda fucked then? Lol

Ever since the global working shortage it seems all the rubber bands from chutingstar arrive somewhat, with no powder, and break super easy. This has been consistant among multiple shipments obviously this isn't ideal i was wondering if anyone knew of any companies selling good, legit, fresh rubber banda?

It’s in my experience that Skydive Danielson is the type of place that creates memories that you’ll likely be thinking about for decades down the line. People travel from hours in every direction - driving past other DZ’s, to come get some jumps, have some laughs, and eat some food on the grill with the warm & inviting company that inhabits this dropzone. It’s big enough to accomodate anybody who wants to jump, but small enough to keep a proper mom-and-pop sort of vibe that ensures everybody is taken care of. I don’t know how the DZ is located in a place where it seems like every sunset somehow has radiangly pink clouds, and every night bright full of stars, but it makes the hour & 20 minute drive for me feel a lot closer 30 seconds.

That’s usually what I do, but it seems the fabric starts to drape over all the sides of my hand I have on the roll under the canopy

I’ve noticed that when packing, when I go to set the canopy down it tends to get pretty sloppy and distorted. Sort of just drapes all over my arm during the setting process and I feel like the lines get a bit moved around and the fabric unflaked Obviously it’s not the end of the world but it would be nice to be able to neaten up that part of packing I try to keep forward tension on the fabric while doing it but doesn’t seem to be enough to keep the canopy shape in place Do you guys have any tips on keeping the flaked shape the same when setting it down?

I’ve never been able to find a record of someone dying of a hard opening while using dacron lines, altho u can obviously still get slammed also, you would need a huge drogue to slow you down to 75mph from terminal, a size that would be extraordinarily obstructive to fit on a sport rig

sfzombie i really respect and appreciative the innovation behind this idea, but it just overall doesn’t come across as very practical. i can think of many jumps i’ve done where an extra few seconds of having to tinker around with a drogue system would’ve likely caused trouble in some way or another. a lot of times when it’s time to pull, it’s simply time to pull. there’s a reason why you need 500 jumps to fly near a tandem pair in the sky there’s things like slider snaps, proper packing and slowing your body down during opening that are just much more practical to deal with. you’d be suprised with how slow you could make your body by dearching and widening up alone, it’s what i do for deployment time you also don’t want to be too too slow at pull time either or you could get all sorts of twisted up i know plenty of people with hundreds of jumps including myself who’ve never had a proper hard opening. if you don’t have dacron lines on that raven, that’s more of a life-saver than a drogue would be maybe spend some time in the tunnel working on your arching j dearching just seeing how high and floaty you can get. when i deploy i pretend i’m in the tunnel trying to go upwards, and i swear sometime it’s like i almost don’t even feel the first few seconds of opening

sfzombie13, you’re like me. i’ve thought about stuff like this before too when i first started jumping, but it’s really just not practical. when i started jumping, like you, i read stuff online about hard openings and it scared me, but spending your skydiving career in fear of a hard opening isn’t a practical way to embrace the sport The idea you’re proposing would not only add a lot of extra trouble, but it would hinder you from being able to easily skydive with your friends and celebrate the sky properly i’ve only been jumping for a few years, but let me fill you in on a little secret: Most people don’t know shit about their equipment, most people don’t listen to the manufacturers recommendations on packing, and most people are in on the long-running joke of packing their parachutes as half-assedly as possible and saying “i hope this one opens good!”, and 99.9% of the time it manages to work out for them if you don’t want to die of a hard opening, just pack nicely, fly a parachute that opens softly, de-arch before opening to slow down, keep your eyes on the horizon during deployment, and use dacron lines. hell, maybe even get a slightly domed slider to help ensure it catches air properly. double stow your locking stows, replace them if worn, and make sure they have a solid 2.5 to 3 inches of line bite size. flat track away from formations, and stop forward speed before opening. a lot of people stack all the odds against themselves. they fly steeply away from a track, single-stow their locking stows with a one inch bite, trash pack parachutes that are known to open quickly, use no-stretch lines, and somehow miraclously manage to only have a slammer once every season or two i’ve found using a “pack monkey” bought online helps with slider control during the S-folds a spectre with dacron lines does me wonders, a pilot with dacron lines works wonders for others. not sure why you’re using a raven as a main, but who knows if it opens well for you then so be it there are tons of videos and articles online you can read and watch about hard openings, some of jon leblancs stuff is informative. they’re not just a mystery occurance, it’s pretty well known these days the reasons behind them

I just meant consistantly/reliably soft.

like a few weeks or a month

If your locking stows are loose and the canopy comes out of the bag early, the slider won't be able to do it's job properly. Use fresh rubber bands and double stow the locking stows. Also, the safire2 doesn't allow dacron lines. Use dacron lines, and maybe even a slightly domed slider if you wanted to be extra certain. Like the same length and width as the regular slider for the canopy size, but in my personal experience just 2 inches of dome doesn't really increase the opening time much but does increase the reliability of openings. Make sure when quartering the slider that the fabric is as deep in the canopy as possible. I got my dome slider at paraconcepts.com A spectre or pilot with dacron lines, with tight locking stows, are about some of the most reliable openings you can get. The hybrid pilot would soften the openings even farther.

I got a reserve canopy from him that came from Russia too, it came in just fine. Russia actually has really great skydiving deals, I also got my main and AAD from Russia as well (not from Jeff though)