obelixtim

If you are dead, why would you care.... My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....

A Unit???. Meh!!!. I never heard anyone who had one say anything nice about them....they disappeard from the scene fairly quickly. A bit of a dog... My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....

She's mine!!!...Keep your filthy hands off, you guys.... My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....

Pffffttt...chicken feed, I have a mate who got his A licence just with cutaways...now well on to qualifying for his B.... 36 cutaways and counting.....about 8000 jumps in total.... I only have 2, but I've ridden a couple into the ground that I shouldn't have.....always walked away...touch wood. My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....

The problem remains though, that people today still cannot engulf a lake, before it engulfs them.... My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....

You've had most of the answers as to why its not a good idea. EP's are drilled into people so they should become almost automatic responses when a problem occurs. This is why first jump training incorporates a lot of EP drills. In a stress situation, the simpler and more practised the drills, the more likely there will be a good outcome. Changing that, especially early in a jump career is a bad move, because it is easy to revert to your original drills when adrenalin kicks in, and that is likely to have bad consequences. One of the common factors in quite a few fatalities is a recent change in equipment with different EP's. History tells us its a bad idea, and its a lesson hard learnt. Thats why it is necessary to have a "few more jumps" under your belt.....in fact, a lot more jumps. My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....

A couple of brutal openings I had testing a new reefing system for a Delta 2 parawing would suggest that IS definitely the case. Bruises the size of dinner plates on the inside of the thighs took a couple of weeks to disappear. Opening shock followed by instant pain was the go. Needless to say, that bright idea went straight in the bin!!!. My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....

The rig sliding up the MLW on deployment (especially a terminal one) can also be a neck breaker when the cross connector between the reserve risers catches the jumper under the chin. And another one I read about years ago where the Darwin award winning jumper decided to attach his D rings to the harness, and did so by stitching them with e thread to the OUTSIDE of the MLW... You can guess the rest of that particular story.... My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....

With only a few jumps, if your profile is accurate, you'll need to clock up a few more jumps before anyone will let you near such a rig though. If you hang around the sport long enough you could well experience a cutaway for real. Its always on the cards. My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....

I always thought it was a dumb idea myself... That one occurred in the early 80's if my alzheimers serves me correctly.... Funny how quite a few on the DZ at the time, decided that a due for service reserve was better dumped on the ground after that incident........I was right beside him under canopy at the time and it scared the crap out of me. My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....

That loooks like a good system. Ours was built back in the early 70's, initially for demos, out of a B4 H & C, with two mains and two sets of 1 1/2 shots, and a normal belly wart on the front. The sight of it would prolly scare the crap out of people today, but it worked well. I did quite a few demos with it, showing "emergency" procedures, which wasn't strictly accurate, but the crowds didn't know, and thought it was great.....We always let them know what we were planning, of course... My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....

OK, that looks like a good system. I wonder (I assume so) if they've figured out what sort of opening shock he would be subjected to if he did have an accidental opening at altitude. At 800 mph I wouldn't expect him to be too healthy after such an event.. My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....

Well I guess he's depending on a drogue to inflate correctly if he needs it, so I guess the same physics would apply to his reserve. Kittinger had a drogue, it worked fine. My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....

D'ohhhhhh!!!!!. Thats a distress signal....were you met by the emergency services?. My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....

Perfectly sound duct tape.... And the chickens, don't forget the chickens... My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....

Sounds like the level headed Aussie....drooled out of both sides of his mouth.... My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....

Speaking of the system we used to use....We had two mains, with a reserve on the front, you could chop both mains. On other systems, the tertiary has no pilot chute, is a roundie and is deployed by hand, i.e. you pull the ripcord, take hold of the canopy and throw it away from you, then feed out the lines. Its how reserve procedures used to be back before cutaways were common. A bit scary if you are in a spin, you have to remember to throw the reserve into the spin. This kind of tertiary is the type used by hang glider pilots. My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....

History would say otherwise. There was a time where everyone jumped similar wingloaded canopies. Anyone would think big aircraft, big formations and loads have only just been invented. I was on a load with over 500 canopies in the sky at the same time, from the same altitude (3500 ft), with everyone landing on the same beach within a minute. Wingloadings would have been the same. 2 weeks of jumping with 3 C130 Hercules in action, 800 skydivers, at a busy international airport. No issues with canopy collisions I've been on many big loads where the wingloadings have been the same and I've never seen a canopy collision. In 36 years of jumping, at venues and meets all over the world, I've never even seen a canopy collision. Canopy collisions between canopies have only become "common" in recent years. Used to be, canopy collisions were events where someone in FF took out an opening canopy after RW...even then, extremely rare. You can twist it any way you like, but open canopy fatalities have largely coincided with the advent of highly loaded canopies. FACT!!. My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....

It comes down to which nit you want to pick, The mal is simply the platform from which you depart the scene. If I am riding a mal, cutting it away is definitely one of my intentions at that point. Pre planned is probably a better term to use...because a mal certainly isn't planned. Dealing with it is. A DZO would be less than wise to allow you to board the aircraft with only two parachutes with the intention to cut one away no matter what. But as far as formal regulations to make it illegal to do a pre planned cutaway without a tertiary, I doubt it is in print anywhere, simply because it is a fairly rare event, and I doubt the lawmakers have ever considered it.. The 3 parachute "rule" has simply evolved as a sensible option, by sensible skydivers, looking after their own arses. How about the in flight transfer scenario. That could also be classified as an intentional cutaway. I've seen a couple done at close quarters by people whose reserves are due for a repack. One in particular I remember came as close to an entanglement and bounce as you'd ever want to get without actually doing so. The jumper screwed it up completely, getting himself tangled up in his reserve, and THEN chopping his main....luckily he fell out of the entanglement. He needed clean boxers after that one..... My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....

*** Thank you Neil. 'Nuff said. My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....

By definitiion, any time you chop a mal, you are doing an intentional breakaway. The difference comes in the amount of time you have spent planning it.....seconds as opposed to an hour or two. Why you would want to chop a perfectly good main with only your reserve as backup isn't too smart, I think. Of course you rely on your reserve every jump you do, but pushing the envelope unnecessarily doesn't seem like a good idea. We had a rig which would take two mains, and we always static lined the first one to eliminate the need to have a ripcord in your hand. I use it a few times on demos,.. it was also good to test jump a few home made designs and systems we came up with. An intentional cutaway on such a system though is no real substitute for dealing with a real malfunction, because the stress factor is so much less. When you are carrying 3 parachutes, and are cutting away at a higher altitude than you would normally be opening at is not really a big deal at all, even when you jump a deliberately packed malfunction. Yes you are physically performing a cutaway, but it is really not that much different from a cutaway in a hanging harness, apart from the fact you are at a higher altitude. For fun, testing or demos, fine, but there really isn't a lot of point in doing an intentional, as its not really a realistic scenario... For someone who has never had a mal and needs one for rating purposes, perhaps that rule needs revisiting. You might as well have a power line or tree landing as one of the things you have to experience. My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....

Ok thats fine, tells me what I wanted to know.. My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....

Good post. Poynters manual....the riggers bible.... everything you ever wanted to know and more...Don't read it all at once!!!. My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....

Drip feeding insinuations/allegations can have the same effect. I am tending now to disregard what you say, because I don't believe you are part of the investigation team, who at this point will be sifting fact from fiction. That includes any "cover up" attempts, which would be exposed in due course..... No investigator would be releasing information at this stage of an inquiry, because it is counterproductive to the inquiry itself. Any other info is worthless without knowing the whole picture. That is NOT the same as "covering up" as you put it. And FWIW, my old jump plane ran perfectly fine on auto fuel , I just made sure it was properly filtered first. Avgas is simply road gas with a slightly higher octane rating. I wouldn't generally use it though, one reason being the taxes on road fuel in NZ make it far more expensive than avgas. Avgas ran fine in my truck though, as long as I reduced the octane rating by mixing it with normal fuel.... My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....

I wasn't going to say it!!. It does seem strange that he won't answer your question whether he has an axe to grind. Some of his posts on that incident seem to have been shot down as incorrect. Mix and matching equipment is never a good idea. I'd be VERY surprised if a tandem operator was doing that, as he alleges. My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....