Quasar II

[Beeron 0]

A guy at my DZ is looking to sell his second rig, and I'm pretty interested in buying it. The main (Spectre 170) only has 300 jumps, one reserve ride on the Tempo 150, and the cypress is only a year old. The only thing I'm uncertain about it is the container.....a Quasar II. I've never seen one or even tried one on before. He's bringing it out next weekend for me to check out, but I wanted to do a little research here first and see if anybody's got an opinion on this rig. Any info would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
"My eyes are dry and my hands are clean
and I can't believe all the things I've seen"
-- Blind Melon

[riggerrob 643]

Quasar II is a decent, 1990s vintage container. The real questions are wether the harness fits you and how much wear it has suffered.
Quasar II packing manuals are available on-line at Strong Enterprises' web site.
http://www.strongparachutes.com/manuals.html#quasarmanual

[freeflir29 0]

I don't want to taint you.....but......The club I started jumping with had several Quasar II's and I saw to ugly things happen with them. The first....I was checking out a rig one day and had just finished packing it. I was going to give the harness a final look and noticed some very deep cuts in the leg straps. At first everyone thought someone had seriously abused the harness. Once someone put it on we found out that the cuts were right where the hardware bit down on the webbing. A closer inspection of the hardware revealed some fairly sharp edges which had cut into the harness. Granted......Strong doesn't make the hardware themselves. They get it from a supplier just like everyone else. I guess it slipped by. The scary part is that someone had jumped this rig the weekend before and not noticed. Much more wear and he could have found himself in Free Fall again minus a parachute system.
Story number 2. 5 way RW dive. Turn, track, dump around 3000 FT. Just as my main becomes fully inflated I feel a tug on the harness. That tug was the locking stows on my now deploying reserve breaking. I had checked the pins prior to jumping but noticed that the swage ball was a little closer to the reserve handle than usual. I was in a hurry to get to the plane and shrugged it off. I had seen plenty of people jump without much slack in the reserve cable before. Well...obviously it bit me. I got down just fine but it was a scary and long ride from 2400 Ft with two canopies. I'm convinced the cable had somehow become kinked in the harness or housing removing all the slack. When I deployed it was enough to pull the reserve pin.
Maybe I just have bad luck but I won't ever jump another Quasar II. Just my .02C YMMV!!!
"Here I come to save the BOOBIES!"

[bmcd308 0]

I had checked the pins prior to jumping but noticed that the swage ball was a little closer to the reserve handle than usual. I was in a hurry to get to the plane and shrugged it off.

Umm ... Don't hurry to make a load at the expense of checking out questionable gear. I think you probably know this very well from your other posts, but this one spells out so clearly the dangers of doing this that I could not resist pointing it out.
When I look through gear-related IR's, particularly ones that should have been caught on the ground, I wonder how many have hurried to make their last load.

[PhreeZone 20]

Quasars II are perfectly acceptible rigs to jump at a good price compaired to "Top of the Line" rigs now days. Just have it inspected for wear like any other rig.
If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will....

[freeflir29 0]

Quote

Don't hurry to make a load at the expense of checking out questionable gear

No SHIT!!!! I had 30-40 jumps at the time and I surely learned my lesson. I doubted it but jumped anyway. The ONLY reason I didn't stop was the fact that this was rental gear with all the adjustments on the harness and you know it fits everyone but no one well. I should have taken the rig off and checked it but instead wrote it off to a poorly fitting harness. Dumb move but I'm glad I lived to tell about it. Another honorable mention is prior to that incident another jumper in the club had a simultaneous deployment on a Quasar II. Not sure if it was the same rig or not.......*shrug* Also something I noticed about the rig was the fact that the reserve pin seemed to "float" around a lot. Of course, I check it before every jump but was always having to push it down. My Dolphin.....it never moves......
"Here I come to save the BOOBIES!"

[riggerrob 643]

A floating ripcord pin sounds like the reserve closing loop was too loose.
That problem can arise with any model of container.
A wise jumper would have taken it back to the last rigger - who singed the card - and asked for a newer, shorter reserve loop.
The bottom line is: don't jump "dodgy" gear.

[Beeron 0]

Thanks for the input that everyone has offered.
The guy who's selling it bought it from a rigger and says that it's got very little wear and has always been packed indoors. He's bringing out to the DZ this weekend, so I plan on just taking it to a friend of mine who is a master rigger and will give it a full unbiased inspection. Hopefully it all passes, cause this is a pretty sweet deal for my fir**.....ooops, I mean pre-second gear!
Thanks again,
B~
"My eyes are dry and my hands are clean
and I can't believe all the things I've seen"
-- Blind Melon

[Krishan 0]

I jumped a quasar ll once. I wasnt too thrilled about it. Design, Fit, Flap Securage, etc.
Then again I'm used to a Mirage G3, so I'm a gear snob now.