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There is a slider progression of sorts for jumpers today. On student status and for numerous jumps afterward, the slider is left flapping in the wind at the top of your risers. At this point in your skydiving career you have much more important items to concentrate on, and many student canopies don’t have collapsible sliders anyway. After purchasing gear, you may take the time to collapse your slider for a quieter canopy ride. After accumulating several hundred jumps, you decide to try bringing your collapsed slider below the toggles to help reduce drag and improve performance. After a thousand jumps or so you want to keep that slider down behind your head so you look into a slider keeper. Around the drop zone you see slider keepers of all shapes, sizes, designs and attachment points. You see Velcro systems attached to the back of jumpsuits, Velcro and bungee systems wrapped around reserve pin cover flaps or sewn to the top of the container, and material “blocks” sewn to risers that keep the slider locked down. Someone is selling the Velcro keepers and you buy one, wrapping it around your reserve pin cover flap. The next jump you open your canopy, collapse your slider, slide it past the toggles and Velcro it behind your head. You then take a look at your canopy and release the toggles. All of a sudden you’re spinning out of control as one toggle won’t release...you panic, cutaway and deploy your reserve. One problem though, your main doesn’t cutaway immediately due to the slider keeper and your reserve and main entangle. Uh oh. Talk to the rig manufacturer, a rigger and an AFF jumpmaster before adding a slider keeper to your rig. Find out what the potential problems are, how to avoid them and decide if this piece of equipment is right for you. We recommend using “slider blocks,” which are attached to your main risers and won’t hinder a cutaway. And if you do use a Velcro keeper, don’t forget square, stable and steerable before putting the slider in the keeper.

It’s been about six months in the making, but Chuting Star Rigging Loft has finally got its own T-shirt. The essence of the design was actually stolen from a shirt I saw at Disney World with the peace, love and Mickey Mouse symbols. I later found out Disney wasn’t the only company that has used this slogan of sorts as Joe’s Crab Shack has shirts for peace, love and crabs. Cute, eh? So Chuting Star Rigging Loft’s T-shirt features the three symbols of peace, love and skydiving (or Chuting Star Rigging Loft). The shirts were produced by Endangered Species, a skydiving printing shop in Colorado run by Neil Shannon Walker. For the last year he has produced pullup cords for Chuting Star Rigging Loft as well as Mr. Pink. His quality, price and customer service has been unmatched. There is no underlying political statement in the shirt. I just love skydiving and enjoy running the rigging loft. Currently the T-shirts are only available in a yellow/gold color with black ink. The design at this link is printed on the front across the chest. We do have shirts in small, medium, large, extra large and double extra large. The shirts are $15, and for those who do not skydive at Atlanta Skydiving Center or Alabama Skydiving, we will ship them to you for free. Woohoo! Other skydivers or companies looking for a quality printer for your pullup cords or T-shirts, I encourage you to contact Endangered Species at pullupcords@yahoo.com. You will not be disappointed with the finished product. Those of you wanting to order a Chuting Star Rigging Loft T-shirt can do so on our price list page at this link. Just click on the “Buy Now” button to place your order and we will ship it out to you the next day.