jdfreefly 1 #1 April 9, 2003 Waiting for my laundry to dry so I thought I would post this: The weather for Sunday looked like shit, so I stayed in bed until 10:00. Finally drag my lazy ass out of bed, and wholly shit, it's a nice day... Race to the dz, just in time to miss a load, so I catch the next one. Good 3 way free fly, my budy is jumping a demo so we all break off high. I dump my crossfire2 119 just under 4k(I'm about 220 out the door). Perfect deployment to line stretch, nice ball of sniveling canopy over my head. As it starts to inflate, it begins a dive to the left. Nothing unusual here, it always does that. Then....something feels off, something note quite right....hey where the..what the oh....HARD SURGING TURN to the right. Before you can say, "who packed this piece of shit?!" I've got between 4-5 line twists and a great view of the blue sky as i spin on my back. Wow, this is kind of fun.... One feeble attempt to kick out, but my instincts are saying, "This is not recoverable!" Time to leave...I calmly reach down and get my right hand on the cutaway handle and slip my left hand into the reserve handle. Pull one..ouch...what was that...pull the other. Reserve above my head in plenty of time to calmly arange the cables from both handles and stick them in my mouth (I gotta ask the rigger if he clean these things better next time). Stood it up right by the hangar. My face is stinging like a son of a bitch but other than that, I am in a prety good mood. I look up and I can see my main going down towards the end of the runway and about 40 yds away, I see one of the guys in my group setting up to land. He chased it for me... what a guy. I've got my cables, my main, and just as we start to go out for the free bag, two girls who jump at the dz walk in with it. They were coming back from grabing some food when they saw it. I got video of the whole thing, and you can plainly see that the toggle on the left hand side is unstowed. So I went over and made fun of the packers. One interesting thing about this story, I was under a highly loaded eliptical canopy that was spining violently and the risers were twisted around each other below the toggles. And yet, the cutaway was not dificult at all. The last time (about 2 weeks ago) my reserve was repacked, I had my rigger put hard inserts into my risers. No reason not to have em...get em!!! When I get around to it, I'll freeze frame some of the better shots from the mall and post them up here. Methane Freefly - got stink? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
stylin 1 #2 April 9, 2003 Great story, thanks. Interesting, spinning violently and not hard to do a cutaway. What a relief, I had been kind of wondering about that. Did you have to look at the handles to find them or did you just find them? Sounds like something hit you in the face after cutting away. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jdfreefly 1 #3 April 9, 2003 I reached without lookin and found them right away. I am pretty sure that one of my risers hit me in the face. They were twisted up in front of my face so it is a likely scenario. Also, I forgot to mention, congrats to PJ (rigger at X-keys) on his first save. I told him that if I had realized it was him who had packed my reserve, I would have tried harder to kick out of it. Methane Freefly - got stink? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
skygod7777 0 #4 April 9, 2003 Quote I told him that if I had realized it was him who had packed my reserve, I would have tried harder to kick out of it. . hahahha, when i had my first cut away, it was before i had my ticket, and i was like 13 (my dad was supervising) and i fought the damn thing from 5k to 2k trying to kick out of line twist because it was the first one that i had done all myself with no help, and i had just packed it on wednsday, and it happened saturday first load. but i tried so hard to get out of those damn line twist. and i found out that most of the time, once they start spinning, it's not going to stop. later Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
stylin 1 #5 April 9, 2003 QuoteI reached without lookin and found them right away. I am pretty sure that one of my risers hit me in the face. They were twisted up in front of my face so it is a likely scenario. Also, I forgot to mention, congrats to PJ (rigger at X-keys) on his first save. I told him that if I had realized it was him who had packed my reserve, I would have tried harder to kick out of it. Hey, check out this subject on page two of this forum: mpeg skydiving videos - post here I posted a url to a live video feed of someone cutting away in a spin. Looks pretty awesome. Later dude. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
covey 0 #6 April 9, 2003 Glad you are still with us in one piece!!! Thanks for posting the story. Believe those who are seeking truth. Doubt those who find it. -Andre Gide Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
betzilla 56 #7 April 9, 2003 Hard housings -- thirty bucks that will save your life! Thanks for posting you tale JD. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Slowfaller 0 #8 April 9, 2003 Quote Hard housings -- thirty bucks that will save your life! Or a call to your container manufacturer for the cost of long distance. Chris --"Someday you will die and somehow somethings going to steal your carbon" -MM Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
BoobieCootie 0 #9 April 9, 2003 Nice Out ~$180 to replace them - so why it's called a freebag when it costs $180 beats me Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
