Reserve deployment / staging issues

[riggermick 7]

This is cross posted from the incidents forums so that any interested parties won't miss it.

Mick.


To say the least there was some concern about the incident and in particular the fact that the reserve didn't deploy. I wasn't real concerned about it until Brew brought up the canopy transfer scenario, which is in my emergency playbook, that got my attention. We found the reserve D-bag to be held in place by the closed corners of the reserve tray created by the reserve side flaps and material coming up from the main side flaps. The force on the ground seemed minimal to extract the d-bag.

The reserve deployment system worked exactly as designed. The reserve container flap design (shape) and configuration (how they interact with one another) was deliberately designed to prevent the reserve canopy from deploying in just this type of scenario. This type of engineering is called "friction staging". Had a breakaway been performed the drag on the pilot chute would have increased in a second or two as free fall speed was increasing. Just as in a normal cutaway situation the reserve would be extracted in the same time frame from a standing start, the reserve pilot chute(s) being already out would make for a faster deployment than an RSL.
Had this container not been equipped with friction staging you would have had a two canopy out situation and some much harder decisions to make.
The container worked exactly as it was designed to. I'm glad you're ok.


All this led to much speculation and debate and we all decide to investigate and compare findings.
My first point of contact was to talk with Ray Ferrell (hope I got the spelling correct) who currently handles tech issues and parts for the Reflex H/C. He was very helpful and gave me much the same info as you have given here, thanks to both of you for your help. I'm completely satisfied with the explanations given here and by others as to the reasons why the reserve didn't deploy and will continue to use my Reflex. My cypres did its job, my Reserve system functioned as designed and I will not be so stupid in the future.

[riggerrob 643]

I have seen the same scenario a half-dozen times with Sidewinders. In all those cases, a junior jumper deployed his main so low (below 3,000 feet) that he scared his FXC 12000, but only the reserve pilotchute depoyed. In all those cases, friction held the reserve d-bag on the jumpers' back until he landed. The last guy did know that his reserve container was open until his reserve d-bag flopped over his shoulder after touch down.
Hee! Hee!
The guy who deployed really low landed two biplanes in a row before quitting the sport.