Who'll make a bailout rig for your square reserve?

[BlindBrick 0]

I was jsut curious about who will make a bailout harness designed to hold a sqaure reserve? I know that RI does the P-124 but I was under the impression it only uised their proprietary reserve. Anybody else make them?

-Blind

"If you end up in an alligator's jaws, naked, you probably did something to deserve it."

[riggerrob 643]

I packed a variety of square reserve canopies into pilot emergency parachute containers (PEP) while working for Butler Parachute Systems and Para-Phernalia.
Butler preferred to pack huge (i.e. 340 square foot) Para-Flite military freefall reserves for "well nourished" Texans.
I also packed a Para-Flite Cirrus reserve (about 220 square feet) in to custom seat pack that we built for Mike Mangold, a recent member of the US Aerobatics Team.

You can stuff almost any TSOed square reserve into a PEP, but keep in mind the miserable state of mind of the user. Bigger is better, probably the same size you would give to a first jump student, say Tempo 250.
It is a fairly simple matter to order a freebag from Butler or PPI, buy you will need a Master Rigger to sew on the steering guide loops.

[NickDG 23]

Rigging Innovations makes a pilot rig called the Aviator that is square. What's novel about it is the toggle/brake system. I think it was factory set in the half or three quarter brake position and you rode it in like a round with a comparable decent rate.

If the passenger was just a little hip they could also riser themselves into the wind.

It's here: http://www.rigginginnovations.com/aviator.htm

NickD BASE 194

[riggerrob 643]

Only the larger Aviators (280 and 246) have the funky toggles, while smaller (212 to 179) Sport Aviators have conventional steering toggles.

I put five live jumps on the 280 square foot version. Several times I deliberately landed down-wind, in the Elsinore toolees, with my hands off the toggles. None of those landings were as hard as C-9 round canopies.

I am biased towards the larger versions, similar in size to the reserves we loan to first jump students.

[NickDG 23]

Thanks for the clarification, Rob . . .

I don't understand why the military hasn't gone to squares for pilots. They could build them super bullet proof for high and fast punch outs and they would still open faster than a round when low and slow. And we've done square BASE jumps lower than zero-zero ejections.

I know the military is anal about live practice jumps for pilots but that altitude seems outdated nowadays. A tandem or something should be part of their pilot training.

The benefits I see are not coming down in the fireball that was your aircraft and escape and evasion when over the bad guys. Navel aviators could also avoid being run over by the aircraft carrier on cold shots and engine failures on take offs. Heck, the really head's up ones might avoid getting wet altogether by landing back on the deck.

If under a round and your enemy is smart enough to read the winds he'll know right about where you'll land. If under a square you could wear them out by changing direction or leading them into rougher terrain. You could also make less of a target in the air by spiraling down, or if needed, and when not being shot at, use the brakes to stay up longer. Another benefit could be ground re-launching the canopy after a landing in the mountains.

And how hard would it be to teach a fighter pilot to fly a square?

Is there something I'm missing? The only thing I can think of is that the majority of punch outs result in some kind of injury during the ejection process. But a big square set in deep brake mode wouldn’t be any worse than a round in that situation.

The only drawback I see would be all the canopy manufactures dumping the sport side of the business in favor of government contracts.

NickD BASE 194

[ryoder 1,590]

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I don't understand why the military hasn't gone to squares for pilots.
NickD BASE 194

Manley Butler spent years at China Lake developing the ram-air ejection canopy for the Navy. When someone brought it up on rec.skydiving, I believe his rant went something like this:

"Every Admiral wants to retire being able to say, 'It didn't happen on my, watch!', with it being good, bad or otherwise. Until some congressman's kid gets shot down in a situation where he could have evaded being captured if only he had had a square canopy, no Navy brass will have the balls to make the decision to deploy a ram-air equipped ejection system."

"There are only three things of value: younger women, faster airplanes, and bigger crocodiles" - Arthur Jones.

[mjosparky 4]

Nick,

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I don't understand why the military hasn't gone to squares for pilots. They could build them super bullet proof for high and fast punch outs and they would still open faster than a round when low and slow.

I really doubt that if a ram air is allowed to open as fast as a round, even when reefed that it would survive. The deployment of a ram air does not lend itself to metering like a round does.

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I know the military is anal about live practice jumps for pilots but that altitude seems outdated nowadays. A tandem or something should be part of their pilot training

I am not aware of any requirement for live jumps by pilots. In almost every case their first canopy ride is when they punch out.

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Navel aviators could also avoid being run over by the aircraft carrier on cold shots and engine failures on take offs.

An ejection is a very violent event. It is disorienting and in most cases something the pilot has not experienced before. Punching out during or just after a cat shot would not give the pilot much time to learn how to fly a square.

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You could also make less of a target in the air by spiraling down,

We have experienced skydivers killing themselves under good canopies. I think it would be a bad idea to have pilots “spiraling” a ram air towards the ground.

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The only thing I can think of is that the majority of punch outs result in some kind of injury during the ejection process.

You are right. Depending on the air speed and other factors, there is a good chance that the pilot will suffer some type of injury.

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The only drawback I see would be all the canopy manufactures dumping the sport side of the business in favor of government contracts.

ParaFlite did just that. And most of the major manufactures, canopy and H/C, are involved in military equipment to some degree.

Sparky

My idea of a fair fight is clubbing baby seals

[Amazon 7]

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I am not aware of any requirement for live jumps by pilots. In almost every case their first canopy ride is when they punch out.

Thousands of USAF pilots and aircrew have been under a canopy at the USAF Survival School. We Parasailed them up to 700 ft off the little Mini Aircraft Carriers behind the 30' Bertram Tow boats.
Each student gets two rides up to 700 ft and then they release from the tow line( or at least did when I was there)
Depending where they were getting assigned, it meant an automatic trip to the Sea Survival School.

[riggerrob 643]

During the early 1980s, at Navel Weapons Test Center China Lake, Manley Butler started with large (340 or 370 square foot) Para-Flite military freefall canopies, then added a variety of reefing lines and cutters (a larger version of Cypres EOD) to stage openings at a variety of airspeeds.
Note: many ejection seats and cargo chutes use similar reefing lines.

The biggest impediment to the whole squares-in-ejection-seats program at China Lake was Manley's personality. He may be a brilliant engineer, but he lacks the patience needed to deal with civil servants.

The United States Air Force Academy (Colorado Springs, Colorado) has had an optional freefall parachuting program for longer than most of us can remember. They started with slightly modified military ejection seat rigs (BA-22?), but in the mid 1990s, they bought 300+ Telesis sport containers from Rigging Innovations and converted to all square canopies for their afternoon sports program. As a result, siginificant numbers of USAFA graduates - in the last decade have made a few jumps on square parachutes.
The next step is for them to rise to senior procurement positions in the Pentagon.

The third step would involve a major change in mind set in the military industrial complex.

The last time (winter 2001) I jumped with Hank Ascuito (sp?), he was packing ejection seats into Lockheed XF-35 Joint Strike Fighter prototypes. There was no mention of square canopies and the F-35 is likely to be the last manned fighter plane bought by the USAF.

MJOSPARKY knows more about this than me ... but I would not be surprised if it requires 10 or 15 years, dozens of test shots and millions of dollars to certify a new canopy in an ejection seat.

[LouDiamond 1]

Contact Jump Shack, they can hook you up.

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