The parachute and coveralls arrived today. The five foot chute is a little anemic for slowing down anything of substance. More like one or two cats instead of six if you want to reuse the cats.

The coveralls are impressive, very well made, brand new, and weigh six pounds. Both the outer shell and non-removable inner liner are 100% aramid. This is not likely to be something you would want to wear in the summer. They are a fantastic bargain at $30. They only have size 40L left now for the U.S. coveralls, so if you're tall and skinny, it's worth a look.

Reviving this thread.... I need to hand bomb some goodies (less than 25 pounds...more like 5 or 10) for the school kids going on the bison hunt in March. I want to hand bomb the goods from my seat... Anyone here with experience dropping loads with a chute? and next questions is, what chute are you using? where can you buy it or buy material to make your own...I'd like the load to land softly rather than a bad crash. Thanks for the insight. Cheers, BCT

BCT-
There's another thread around here about parachute drops. Might have been courierguy's? Anyway, for homemade, I've seen good results using the rain fly from a dome tent.
Have fun,

-DP

Thanks Tim, yes I found Amacbean's thread "Dropping packages from the air"....great read...he too used a tent fly... anyone else has any updates on what works great too... if the goods are not too light, ie 10 pounds +, how long would the parachord have to be (distance between box and parachute...5'..more/less) so that it doesnt open immidiately and flies onto the tail ... BCT

A bud (from Ore) tells a story of a cat that went berzerk in his plane & was running circuits around the cockpit. He opened the window & the cat was "on his own".

If you really want to test the chute, tie it to a Lab. Then toss a stick or Frisbee out the window. Less chance of getting shredded by using cats.

Had lots of experience using both chutes and gravity drops with supplies. In central america we dropped food with chutes. Half or more of the time it would drift off to someplace other than where it was intended. The chutes are bigger than you would expect for 25-50 lbs. In Africa, we gave up on chutes entirely. We simply put the food, typically some kind of grain, in two bags, one larger than the first. The inner bag would burst and be contained by the outer bag. The other method was to make a 12" thick base of cardboard, which would compress on landing, absorbing the shock. Both methods worked just fine. That was until we flattened an entire village with food by not quite estimating the wind correctly.

The other thing you may want to think about, is the FAA, you know the humor agency, they look dimly on dropping stuff from aircraft. Then again in the middle of nowhere, who's to know. Just don't get a chute wrapped up on your elevator or tail. uncomfortable questions may arise.