The case for carrying a 3rd canopy.

[Trae 1]

Now that canopies are getting so small and pack up sooo tiny it has occurred to me that in some situations a 3rd canopy or second reserve might appeal to extreme safety conscious skydivers.

Scenario 1.

You're going in with a double horseshoe mal after your skybuddies got your 100 jump dump out wrong and dumped both your canopies when you were upside down by accident . Last thoughts ....'I wish I had another parachute.'

Scenario 2

You're going in cause you smoked it down and your cypress fired your reserve into your main just as you were going through 750'. Last thoughts....'I wish I had a third parachute.'


Scenario 3

You're going in with nothing out cause you couldn't dump your main cause you misrouted your bridle and your reserve handle lost the swaging due to rusting cause of all those beach jumps....last thoughts......etc.

Scenario 4

Your CRW buddies wrapped you up and cutaway leaving you with a mess a fabric and lines ..you dump your reserve but the brainless spring puts it into the mess.. your last resort?... to throw your chest mount hand deploy 15'micro ZP roundy out through a nearby hole with its long bridle to lesson your impact with mother earth.

I'm sure there are heaps more possible scenarios where a tertiary would come in handy . A small roundy with a long bridle that packs up into a shaving case size chest mounted container comes to mind.

AAD's compulsory for novices???
A 3rd parachute could possible save more more experienced skydivers from an unnecessary death or serious injury.

Hopefullly your last thoughts won't be "I wish I had a third parachute."


FIRE AWAY

[Tonto 1]

I was in a CReW team that was recovering from a scary episode where one of the members landed a wrap, but survived due to a series of odd circumstances.

He wore a tersh for a while, but it caused a few problems being front mounted using the down the back rotation method.

Personally, I think a main and reserve is enough, and that's after 18 chops and one partial reserve malfunction. More does not mean better. Most people are screwing themselves landing perfect canopies these days anyway - and for the rest of us, we're usually out of time before we're out of chutes.

t

It's the year of the Pig.

[davelepka 4]

Scenarios 1, 2, and 3: That guy deserves to die, and considering the position he put himself in with two canopies, there's no way he could properly work a third.

Scenario 4: Yeah, maybe. CREW guys know what they're getting into, and none of them has brought it up thus far, so I can't se it as catching on.

[diablopilot 2]

Quote

"I wish I had a third parachute."

Who says I don't (sometimes).

----------------------------------------------
You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.

[Elisha 1]

Extra weight to help my arch while doing RW?

[billvon 3,107]

Well:

a) I sometimes use a tersh

b) In all the scenarios you mentioned except 3, the tersh would (IMO) just make things worse. If your main and reserve are entangled, then the odds of being able to deploy a third canopy are pretty low. The odds of it inflating and doing anything useful are lower still; I would say they are similar to the odds that it will just make things worse (increase the line twist or ensnare the other jumper or something.)

c) In scenario 3, if there's someone out there who didn't notice the misrouting, _and_ they didn't notice the reserve ripcord failure, _and_ they don't know to use their RSL, _and_ they don't have an AAD - the odds of that sort of guy taking a tersh along are pretty low. It's like a guy who drives drunk all the time who wears a helmet in the car because he's so safety conscious. Much better that that guy become a better gear inspector (or in the car example, stop drinking.)

d) A tersh can deploy accidentally and be a liability. When I jump with one it's not a normal skydive, and I have to think carefully about changing emergency procedures before and during the jump. One of the reasons our system works so well is that emergency procedures are very very simple - this third parachute would at least double the workload of a malfunction. (And just ignoring it won't work either; if you don't drill on the ground you won't do it in the air, and it becomes pretty useless.)

All that being said, they are sometimes useful for CRW, or gear testing, or intentional cutaways. But they're not all good and no bad.

[riggerrob 643]

Troll!
Your average skydiver is barely bright enough to utilize all the handles for a two-canopy rig.
Adding more handles will just overload his poor feeble brain.

[Trae 1]

in reply to riggerrob's "Troll! "

Is that like a put down or something???

Where I come from trolls live under bridges and emit strange utterances to those crossing over...and ultimately get done over by a few goats.

It's hard not to agree with your other statements though.

However the idea of chest mounted reserves(or tertiary) being used more does have some advantages. And as some others indicated it's probably not for the average skydiver... probably.

One advantage is that you can actually see the thing and if it needs manual attention its right there in front of you not hiding in an inaccesible place in the small of your back.

Intentional cutawayscould be helpful for people who don't really know how they're going to react when in an emergency situation.
Often skydivers don't have a clue how their reserve flies or flares. More common tertairy availoability & use would make this less common.
From the statistics a lot of people just freeze in emergencies and end up relying on AAd's or get dead.

I remember some talk about making an intentional cut-away being made part of the training requirements. This was apparently to cover against litigation due to bounced students not actually getting any experience of how they may react in a real emergency. The intentional C/A was touted as a potential means of reducing student fatalities.
AAD's took over this role I suppose.

Just some thoughts...... if that's trolling ...there's lots of fishin' goin' on round here.

[Praetorian 1]

I thought about a 3system.. but not for safety

1st main (tiny unlandable like say 39sqft) to fly for fun (yea I know a spin on this could kill you quick)

2nd normal main you deploy after cutting away 1st main

3rd Normal back up you use to save your ass should your normal main mal

Hi altitude hop and pop, fly "tiny" for fun to about 4 or 5K release tiny, get stable pull main at normal pull altitude.. Use reserve as nessecary

Good Judgment comes from experience...a lot of experience comes from bad
judgment.

[mdrejhon 8]

Isn't that how Cani flew his VX39?

(Edit: At first for the test jumps...before he decided it was a landable canopy)

[RogerRamjet 0]

Quote

Scenario 2

You're going in cause you smoked it down and your cypress fired your reserve into your main just as you were going through 750'. Last thoughts....'I wish I had a third parachute.'

Let's see, 750' @ 176ft/sec when entanglement occurs (4.2 seconds from impact). A really good skydiver maybe realizes they have a problem in 1 second. 1 more to pull silver (or bronze?), 2 seconds for deployment.... don't think so.

-----------------------
Roger "Ramjet" Clark
FB# 271, SCR 3245, SCS 1519

[billvon 3,107]

>One advantage is that you can actually see the thing and if it needs
> manual attention its right there in front of you not hiding in an
> inaccesible place in the small of your back.

That was a very strong argument against both back-mounted reserves and BOC pilot chutes. "How are students going to pull a handle they can't see?" Turns out to be not such a big deal.

>I remember some talk about making an intentional cut-away
>being made part of the training requirements.

It was a requirement for the Strong Tandem rating. That's since gone away.

[tetra316 0]

Quote

It was a requirement for the Strong Tandem rating. That's since gone away.

When did that change? I had to have a cutaway when I got strong rating last October. Haven't yet had a mal so I did a couple intentionals. More for fun though!

[Trae 1]

in reply to ;I thought about a 3system.. but not for safety

1st main (tiny unlandable like say 39sqft) to fly for fun (yea I know a spin on this could "...................................

Taking this a bit further why not (???) the 3rd tiny parachute being used in a dog-fight type skydive / canopy ride where you get to play dogfights in attack mode.

Thought about this a little while ago and realised that you'd need a special jump-suit with integral hook knives around neck and along limbs to protect the body and to slice through your opponents canopy and /or lines.

Yeah I know it sounds real dangerous but what a blast . International dog-fighting teams slicing up each others ultra high performance micro canopies with 2 back ups for 'normal' landings.

Have any readers done a bit of dogfighting with streamers and HP canopies.? if not ya gotta try it ...lots of fun.

Perhaps the next gen will get to do wild stuff like this.


in reply to Rogerramjet's "Let's see, 750' @ 176ft/sec when entanglement occurs (4.2 seconds from impact). A really good skydiver maybe realizes they have a problem in 1 second. 1 more to pull silver (or bronze?), 2 seconds for deployment.... don't think so.

It would be a close thing ....sure... better to avoid if poss.
I suppose a real good skydiver wouldn't get there...... usually . However my thoughts are backed up by a bit of real life experience. I had a main/ reserve (roundy & square) entanglement (when I had about 120 jumps )and had to ride the mess down from about 2000'... lots of time to think about dying and stuff.

If I had had a 3rd parachute it would have taken me less than 2 seconds to deploy it I assure you.
Also small round parachutes at terminal could open within two seconds.... sometimes faster.

The idea is that it might just slow you down a bit more not necessarily be 'landable by itself.

• Quote

[goose491 0]

Quote

Thought about this a little while ago and realised that you'd need a special jump-suit with integral hook knives around neck and along limbs to protect the body and to slice through... your opponent or self, or bridal/lines of your 'normal' parachutes, or..

Changed that quote a bit to point out that a jumpsuit made of razor blades is not likely what I'd want to wear on a jump where the plan is to try to collide with another jumper under canopy.

My Karma ran over my Dogma!!!

[flynskydive 0]

Yeh, I got my strong tandem rating this June, and I had to do an intentional cutaway since I have yet to have a real one. I got my rating with Bram Clement, and he pretty much knows everything.

USPA Strong T-I, AFF-I, Coach, Videographer/photographer.

[riggerrob 643]

When a young guy wanted to earn a Strong Tandem Instructor - this spring - I helped him assemble a 3-canopy rig for an intentional cutaway.
Our local Strong Examiner still requires some type of reserve ride before he will start training new TIs.

[Trae 1]

in reply 2"Changed that quote a bit to point out that a jumpsuit made of spare tyres & razor blades is not likely what I'd want to wear on a jump where the plan is to try to collide with another jumper under canopy. "

Gee .....that changing the quote bit is so much fun I tried it myself on your quote

Of course this is a flight of fancy and such a 'dogfighting' scenario however exciting would be fraught with collision dangers. That doesn't necessarily make it undoable though. If sufficient crash protection and willing participants were available we'd have something like 'rollerball ' in the sky.

You'd really have to watch your back in such a dogfight arena.