How do I rip my slider on opening?

[brettski74 0]

I've done around 200 jumps on my canopy, a Sabre2 170 which was bought new and is loaded at about 1.2. I've had a couple of "brisk" openings on my old canopy early on, but my new canopy has always been relatively soft opening, although sometimes a little wild due to end cell closures inducing turns and such. The very last jump I did on it was by far the hardest opening I've ever experienced, left my neck a little sore from the whiplash and garnering a lot of comments on the ground from the sound, including several people who asked if I was testing a BASE canopy.

Upon getting back to the hangar and inspecting my gear, I noticed two rips in the slider. I neglected to take a photo before I got it repaired, but one rip was about 5 inches long, parallel to one kill line and about half an inch outside the seam and starting about half an inch inside the tape around the edge of the slider. There was a couple of pulled threads by the rip and it did not appear burned in any way. The other rip was a dog-ear, about half an inch in each direction. The point of the dog-ear was half an inch outside the seam for the other kill-line and about half an inch from the reinforcing tape around the edge of the slider. I also hung up the canopy and inspected it throughout and there was no damage or any other marks on the canopy of the lines.

I'm trying to figure out what happened to cause such an abrupt opening. My first thought was maybe I forgot to un-collapse the slider, however, based on photos and articles I've seen, that would most likely damage the slider by friction from the kill line burning through the slider fabric, however, as noted, the damage appeared to be a rip, not a burn and was outside the seams which surround the kill lines, so it's not possible for the kill line to have touched the fabric. There's also the fact that I religiously un-collapse the slider on the landing prior to gathering up my lines because I find the kill lines get in the way and annoy me if I don't. Basically, I think it's an extremely unlikely explanation.

Another thought was about the jump immediately prior, which also had an odd opening. That one I felt the bag lift off and reach line stretch, but there seemed to be a momentary pause before I felt the canopy out of the bag and starting to inflate as I do on a normal deployment. My rigger suggested that perhaps the slider could have gotten caught on the slider stops or somewhere similar, and I'm thinking that maybe the rips actually happened on the prior jump and the hard opening was caused by the large rip in the slider letting more air through. I'd like to think that I would have noticed that, but I will accept that it's something that I could have missed in a typical pack job if I was distracted or in a bit of a rush. However, another rigger at our dropzone thinks it unlikely that the slider got caught on the slider stops and to be honest, looking at the slider stops, I'm having trouble seeing a point where such a slider hangup could have occurred and caused a rip like the ones seen.

Beyond that, I'm out of theories. Has anyone heard of similar damage to the slider, and if so, do you know what the cause was? I'm curious to figure this out, because it would be nice to avoid that kind of an opening happening again.

[hackish 8]

Was the rip in the slider all the way through? If so then I could see it venting more air through itself (like a reserve slider with a hole) and that strikes me as consistant with what you suspect.

I just had a brutally hard opening on a borrowed s2-170. I suspect it was his packing but I know where you're coming from. This was so hard I could only see black then stars after it slammed. People on the ground said it sounded like a gun. Couldn't move my legs until a few minutes after landing. Nothing like a powerful flare of a sabre2 so you can deposit your beat up body on the ground gently...

-Michael

[riggerrob 643]

I suspect that your slider was miss-flaked and tangled with some suspension lines near the base of the stabilizers/slider stops.
The most likely explanation for a hard opening is a gap between the slider and the base of the stabilizers/slider stops.

[irishrigger 32]

hi brettski,
sorry you had to expirience such a wacker of an opening.hope you ok after it.
in my view,the reasons for a very hard opening come down packing.couple scenarios are possible.the slider was not quarterd correctly.it should be packed right up against the slider stops.also a cause for hard openings is line dump.where your lines properbly secured and stowed? you should have no or very very little slack on the lines.do your rubber bands or tube stows?
i have done over a 1000 jumps on sabres,and only once did i have a hard opening.it was packed by a packer abd managed to blow 2 cells out
just before i roll the tail,i make sure that the slider is down all the way agaist the slider stops and i pull the slider out an couple extra inches in front of the nose.i also dont roll the tail very tight.i see a lot of people that roll the tail really tight about 8-10 times.that is to much in my opinion.i loosely roll my tail,so that is has a chance to open nicely.
another option is what kind of pilot chute are you using? cold it be to big for the canopy? have you checked your kill line? could it have shrunk to much? have you rigger check that out.it only takes a couple sec to do that.
it sounds like it was line burn,sometimes you dont see evidence of that,but that i the likely cause in my opinion.
hope you dont have to expirience that sort of an opening againI


rodger