btucker 0 #1 March 26, 2003 Had my first cutaway on the weekend and the beer tasted mighty fine. Fairly normal track off, except the loaned helmet started to come off. So after I let go of the PC, I had both hands on my head. After a rather firm opening, I removed the helmet which had nicely ridden up my face to obscure my vision. The harness was telling me everything was okay, but a look up showed otherwise. The D bag was in the D lines with the pilot chute wrapping the whole lot up rubbing against the right brake line. “That's a chop I thought” and put the helmet back on. I popped the brakes and did a token flare, it felt crap. I dropped the toggles and went to planB. I [peeled] and pulled the cutaway pad. I was surprised how fast I was facing earth, always thought I'd fall straight down. The air sound slowly increased, it was great! I enjoyed the ground rush for stolen couple of seconds then dumped the reserve. Open by 1600. Saved handles and had a nice landing on the DZ. Interesting to note, the glide slope on the Airforce160 reserve felt very steep. But it flew nice and flared well. Team mate landed next to all my bits and brought it all back. And I got to borrow her Stiletto . I nearly gave her a nasty surprise after I packed it with the brakes unset, but I did remember! What would I do better? 1)Equipment serviceability *may* be an issue. I did have everything checked out last year, but that was a couple of hundred jumps ago. My lines, D bag and pilot chute are abit tired, they have nearly 600 jumps on them. 2)Activated the reserve sooner. Reserve should be activated as soon as "practical." What I did well. 1)Practice emergency procedures in the aircraft. I'd stopped doing this some time ago 'cause it didn't look cool. I recently started again after I saw a student practicing. 2)Flown canopy on rear risers. I had previous made the decision not to land my Sabre on rear risers, it stalls abruptly and sharply. Maybe better pilots can... 3)My helmet had started to get [dangerously] loose in freefall so I borrowed another one, which got even looser! Atleast I tried to be safe. Blues Benno Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
dreamsville 0 #2 March 26, 2003 Superficially, it sounds as though your body position may have caused the bag and the pilot chute to become involved with the main lines/risers. That seems like an unusual situation, at least in my experience. Others may differ. |I don't drink during the day, so I don't know what it is about this airline. I keep falling out the door of the plane. Harry, FB #4143 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
