Hooknswoop

The slider stops don't fit standard risers, only mini-risers. You don't need slider stops for standard risers. If you really wanted them, making them out of type-12 works very well. I've made them for tandem rigs to prevent the rapide links from getting side-loaded. Slinks are stronger than Rapide links, can't get side loaded, don't loosen over time, can't be over-torqued, and don't require a wrench, torque mark or lock-tite. The only thing you have to be careful of is damaged slider grommets (from rapide links) cutting the Slink. Derek

The Army issues the stuff like candy, it's their cure-all. Derek

Maybe she had great Instructors that explained EP's and RSL's very well, but she couldn't be bothered to learn. Maybe she was overwhelmed, simplified the instruction down to a managable level. Maybe she felt she understood, but actually did not. Without more information about the jumper, I can't make a call. The other side of the coin is device dependancy. Maybe it was how she was trained. Maybe she is a victem of the current trend to rely on devices to take care of things instead of the jumper treating them strictly as back up devices. There is a lot that can be learned from this by everyone, Instructors, jumpers, students, everyone. Derek

I totally agree that she was/is device dependant and that is bad. I think sometimes what happens in a cutaway from a total or with a rig without an RSL is when the RSL fails to activate the reserve, the emergency is not going as expected, the jumper thinks they are having a reserve problem, panic and cannot think through what is happening as they experience ground rush. When they practice their EP's, they think, 'OK, mal, cutaway, my RSL will activate my reserve, but I'll follow through with my reserve like a good little skydiver'. When the RSL doesn't activate their reserve, they panic and never get to the 'I'll pull my reserve anyway' part. I would really like to talk to this jumper and discuss what they knew about their gear, what their EP plan was and exactly what went through their mind in free fall. I would also like to hear their future skydiving-related plans. Like someone else mentioned, jumpers and Instructors can all learn from this. I would like to know if she intended to pull her reserve handle but didn't because the RSL didn't deploy the reserve, or if she never hd any intention of pulling her reserve because she had an RSL. Derek

New pic from today. Really coming together. Derek

How do you know that you don't know something about your gear that could kill you someday? I'm sure this jumper felt she understood enough about her gear to jump safely and would continue to learn as she went. She misunderstood how an RSL works. She didn't know that she misunderstood, she she didn't seek further education on the RSL. If you have one, I agree, you should understand how it works. There are a lot of people that don't understand AAD's. I remember a recent reserve fire because the jumper didn't fully understand how the Cypres works. It happens. The problem is if they think they understand how it works, why would they ask for someone to explain something they already know. It takes a lot longer than 30 seconds to fully explain how an RSL works, the advantages and dis-advantages, etc. There are some very long threads about RSL's. It isn't incredibly complicated, but I already showed how simplification can lead to misunderstanding. When the student is trying to learn so much and dealing with the pressure to do it right and anxiety of jumping out of an airplane, learning is a challenge. It is a delicate balance by the Instructor to get the important information across that will definately need and the emergency information all students should be armed with, without overwhelming the student. I don;t think not telling them about the RSL is the right answer either. Ignorance is not bliss. That is a good idea, but if you have 9 people all telling what they think it does, for every piece of the gear, you run out of time and lose the attention of the students quickly. What I have seen does and works very well, is a written test each student takes home after class. They are instructed that the test will not be graded, but is to ensure that the Instructor covered everything, they learned everything, and to identify areas they may need a little more clarification on. This doesn't work for an AFF FJC class in the morning and getting the students in the air that day. It is time consuming. This incident highlights shotcomings in some current student programs. Misunderstandings goes undetected. What we should be asking ourselves, is how did someone with 100 jumps not fully understand how an RSL works? If the jumper simply doesn't care and was a poor student, well, not much you can do. If she is heads up, pays attention, and learns, how did she slip through the cracks? Derek

To everyone that thinks she should be grounded because she didn't learn everything about her gear and make sure she understood everything, I have a challenge. I bet I know something about your gear that you do not. Does that mean you are just as guilty as this jumper and should be grounded? Derek

I totally agree, but that is how RSL are often taught. If this jumper was taught that way, who's fault is it she misunderstood? That was my whole point. How Instructors teach and how students learn need to mesh better. Students are not going to change how they learn. How RSL's are taught needs to change and improve. Sure, but she thought she was doing the right thing. I'm sure the RSL was also coverd and it is likely she misunderstood, which is why she didn't pull her reserve handle. When I was learning to fly a tail wheel aircraft, the Instructor explained what he wanted me to do. After several incorrect approaches, he explained the approach again. On the ground I thought about his first explaination and the second. They both explained what I was to do very clearly. I misunderstood. I thought I understood what he was explaining, but I didn't. I'm not an idiot and felt I was doing everything to learn to fly a tail wheel aircraft that I should be doing, but I still screwed up. What else could I have done? Derek

Maybe. I think it really depends on her reaction. If she is kinda 'oh well' about it, then she needs a wake up call. If she is freaked out because she knows how close she came, a little embarrassed/ashamed of what happened, and expresses a desire to learn everything she can and wants to get right back on the horse, I would think some ground instruction and a 2-way would be in order. Remember the Golden Knight that was tracking for water when his Cypres fired? People make mistakes. As long as it was an honest mistake, she doesn’t need to be sent home, she needs corrective training. Derek

She thought she did. She didn't intentionally pull low or anything. She misunderstood how an RSL works, which is grounds for a grounding, then there should be a lot of skydivers grounded. Grounding is for an attitude adjustment, not because someone made a mistake. Derek

You would think so, bit again, it seems like the better you explain it, the more it doesn't soak in. Spend too much time and energy on the RSL and they won't remember the dive flow or what a base leg is. I was always amazed at how careful I had to be talking to students because of how they would understand what I said. I had to look at it from their perspective, which was very different from my own. Derek

And it isn't just RSL's. Name another piece of gear and I can give an example of someone misunderstanding it, even people that have been jumping a long time. I know someone that has been jumping a very long time and didn't know that the RSL has caused fatalities or that PD's Slinks are actually stronger than Rapide links, and he is a Master Rigger. Derek

She probably thought she understood how it worked and didn't know that she didn't know. If you think you know how something works, why would you ask? You don't know what you don't know, especially at 100 jumps. The RSL seems so simple to you and me, but I remember whan a parachute was a mystical thing that I thought I understood, but had no idea how most of it worked. I am amazed it didn't cause me more trouble looking back at how little I knew. It is difficult to gain that knowledge. I would cut her a break, especially if she became determined to learn as much as possible as quickly as possible about gear. Newer jumpers have alot of information coming at them. They can't even tell what is really important and what is nice to know. They can't remember it all either. One common method of dealing with this information overload is to simplify it as much as possible. "The RSL will activate your reserve when you cutaway from a partial malfunction, such as a line over, bag lock, broken lines, horse-shoe, etc, because it is attached to the main riser by this little shackle that you can disconnect, with the reserve ripcord running through the ring on the other end." becomes: "The RSL will pull my reserve when I cutaway" They barely know what a line over is and in order to remember at least something, they sometimes simplify. It isn't great, but given the choice between simplification and remebering nothing...... How RSL's are taught and explained needs to change and be done very carefully. I would bet I know something about gear that you don't. How come you didn't seek me out to educate yourself? Derek

Hopefully no AFFI leaves it loose to give their student room to arch since you arch at the hips, not in the chest. The chest strap has zero influence on a student's arch. I have seen too many AFFI's teach students to arch in the chest and they do, but then they de-arch at the hips and are not stable. Derek

Right, I fixed that 3 posts up, again, PA's HMA lines sets aren't cascaded. Derek

And people didn't believe me (and others) about device dependancy. This a major fault of the RSL. People have gone in because they were waiting for their RSL to activate their reserve. Education is the answer. The way RSL's are taught and used is often incorrect. This is the result of that poor instruction and/or understanding of RSL's. Derek

That you probably caused. That means you break even. Kinda like if the story of the 2 guys that rescued a bunch of people of out an apartment complex fire that they started, they aren't heros, they just broke even. If the ripcord cable is too shorte for the rig, then you got screwed and the rig needs to be fixed by replacing the ripcord with a longer one. But since the pin didn't move on the first 3 jumps, I doubt this is the case. People forget that they have 2 pins back there and need to be very careful with their rigs in the airplane. The reserve pin is limited to 22-lbs. pull force with out the seal and the main has no such limits. It amazes me how often people sit down and hit their rigs against something in the plane. Derek

People are people. DZ's tend to attract a certain kind of person. Why would you think you could escape human nature at a DZ? DZ's are all the same. Hang out long enough and you start to see 'behind the scenes'. Derek

Yep, PA's HMA is not cascaded. Derek

HMA lines aren't cascaded. Derek

Ya, then that one is on you, sorry. Again, cheap lesson. Derek

So the pin was almost out of the loop, resting on one side of the grommet and the tip through the loop but not touching the other side of the grommet? How did the reserve pin get moved? Was the rig in your care the entire time? It doesn't matter if you did it on purpose or not, you pulled the pin. It didn't come out on its own. Sounds like the pin got moved while the rig was on your back, then it didn't take to get it to clear the loop. You should be thankful that you didn't have a pre-mature reserve deployment that could have killed you and others. Very cheap lesson to be very careful with your rig in the plane and on the ground. It doesn't take much to dislodge the reserve pin. If you rent something, you are responsible for it. As for pro-rating the re-closing of the rig, $15 is cheap and it doesn't take any less work if there was 119 days left on the pack job or 1. Derek

Can you explain this better? Derek

http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/classifieds/detail_page.cgi?ID=27816&d=1 Does this mean Brush is closed again? Derek

Exactly. Derek