pchapman

Since Mel knew what I didn't (thanks!), I dug a bit more: Mike, have a look at 9.5.5 in Poynter (p531). There's actually an indistinct photo of an NB-6's pilot chute as part of packing instructions for Navy backpacks. Sounds like that special cone has two holes, one for a temp pin, one for the final pin when the flaps go over it. Edit: And some military rigs did have loops (eg Air Force B-5), even if the pins & cones were mostly what came into early sport skydiving.

Unless the rig is something unusual that I don't know about, the Navy Back #6 should be like the rest of the US military rigs of the era: There won't be any loops. There should be 4 metal cones that the other flaps' grommets will fold over. The ripcord pins then go into the little hole across the top of each cone, one pin per cone.

Tough choice. I know Burnaby's AFP system has been designed by a very experienced instructor. And SWOOP has been doing PFF for many years, so they have experience with that. With my limited experience I've found PFF tends to be more effective than AFP, but if the AFP is well designed, and cheaper per jump, it may all average out. I haven't checked Burnaby's program lately, but the plan was for the instructor to always wear video for feedback. At SWOOP, the extra fee is for a separate camera flyer to come along and video. That's more something for the one-time jumper, or to pay for once later on, to have something to show friends with a better outside-the-formation viewpoint. So ask if the actual PFF instructors with you can take video -- that could very well be available. (I do PFF at another Ontario DZ, Skydive Toronto, and we always have the PFF instructor(s) do video on the jumps, for review and later provided to the student.) The hang out at the DZ idea is a great one. After all, that's what experienced skydivers end up doing a lot of the time anyway...

A few notable points from the report on the Polish fatality: -- They agreed of course that the reserve was ejected on impact, including the bag coming off and bridle twist during the whole sequence, as the bag and PC were flung out in different directions. (A few on dz had argued that the reserve had been out in freefall.) -- They were able to duplicate failures to fully cut the loop multiple times. This was for loops loaded with at least the minimum of 5 kg force. However, all this was only for the "old cutters", the pre-Sept 2007 ones, as used by the accident victim. A couple demonstrations by the manufacturer, in the presence of one of the investigators, showed clean cuts by the newer cutters, even with low or zero tension. Hardness tests of the cutters showed the newer cutters do have a somewhat increased hardness and a different metal grain structure. (I.e., Aviacom and their supplier have made substantial improvements as claimed). My conclusion: It does look like the newer style cutter is better. While I might not trust it as much as other cutters, there's no evidence in this report that it can't cut cleanly. (However, note that the San Marcos incident involved the newer style cutter. As far as demonstrating a "cutter failure", one can give the cutter the benefit of the doubt, due to the presence of the steel ball -- although the issue should have been investigated in more detail.) -- Despite multiple attempts to get information from Aviacom about interpreting the accident AAD's data from the fatal jump, Aviacom never responded. The data presented in the report is a little messy and I'll let someone else interpret it. -- Hardness of the cutter knife: (in the Rockwell scale) Argus old cutter 47-50 Argus new cutter 55 "another similar cutter" 59 (must be Vigil) "a wedge shaped cutter" 64 (must be Cypres) (I wouldn't take the numbers as conclusive due single tests on the competing brands, but it shows Argus has been a little on the low side.) -- The commission was sensible in the end, in my opinion, in that it viewed an AAD as a backup device only, and that skydivers are responsible for activating their main or reserve parachutes.

Usually no biggie. Magnetic variation is 15 degrees or less over most of the USA. But if the issue was general awareness of winds, spotting, and interpreting aviation weather printouts, that's more significant.

Nothing wrong with high stress when a student is being tested or evaluated -- particularly if those skills will be demonstrated in real life in a potentially stressful situation. But they are going to learn far better under lower stress. The stress can be ramped up as they practice and demonstrate their skills. If the plan is to weed out 90% of students because you only need 10%, fine, stress them all the time. But if the plan is to get a large proportion of the students to learn the skills, teach with lower stress. Naturally, what qualifies as an appropriate "low stress" depends on the situation. One student might know the material well and start losing focus unless challenged to a greater degree. Another student might be missing some crucial bit of understanding or skill so a teaching situation becomes higher stress for them in particular, until they have had a chance to fix the issue.

Just a minor correction Dave: Remember that while we all initially thought the reserve opened first, it was the main that actually opened first.

FWIW, I have seen that before a couple times with UPT pins, the ones that were used for many years but are slimmer than the newest ones. Don't know if it happened over time when installed or perhaps some levering action going on when trying to insert the RSL pin in a very tight loop.

The general answer is that no it basically never happens and isn't normally an issue at all. That's a concern that ranks well below already rare things like line overs on your reserve, fatal freefall collisions, etc. One can always find special case exceptions, and I'll let others dig them up. (Well, a few examples just so I don't get sniped at too much: bad hip rings bent; light chest strap broke in Italy once; worn main lift webs broke at a particular style main lift web adapter - something not used on regular experienced jumper rigs; risers might break but that's a different issue; concerns of TSO standards for reserve forces vs. harness strengths even if there generally haven't been problems) Still, there is normally no need to worry about a harness breaking. Forces that break a harness will normally seriously injure or kill the jumper first.

Could that be the freebag falling away do you think? In the frame by frame it really is something else. Attached is a zip file with a bunch of images frame by frame or close to it. (Just squeezed it into the 300k limit.) If you have an image viewer where you can go forward and back quickly between shots, you get a little movie in effect, which helps to see what's happening. (All this is from a low quality youtube video, and not whatever high quality it was originally shot in. Sorry to everyone at that DZ for picking this incident apart, but it brings up a lot of interesting issues!)

Even more to ponder: Another rigger just PM'd me about checking the video frame by frame, and I found some interesting stuff that he started to notice too. The student isn't pulled away from the instructor by the reserve. It seems that the MAIN CANOPY CLEARED ITS BAG, the student is pulled upright, THEN the reserve pilot chute passes the snivelling main, and pulls the freebag with it. Now that's getting even more sporty! My attachment shows a sequence of cropped screen grabs showing the reserve going by the main. (In part 4 of the photo, something large falls off the student & rig, that can also be seen in the video. What the hell??) Edit: And that reserve PC launch was messy. It looks like it just sat on the rig at first, and even flopped onto the student's left arm, before clearing while out of sight of the camera, but only probably a fraction of a second later. I know full well that spring loaded PC's can dance around, and it always looks worse in slow motion, but, yuk!

Dave's introduction of the riser cover issue complicates everything (if you believe it is an issue), as it gets away from the standard skydiving procedures of "pull cutaway, pull reserve". It adds the complicating factor that a cutaway may not cut away the main, for low drag mals with tight riser covers. That's not part of the most common procedures, although occasionally it does get mentioned. (e.g, sweeping away risers after cutaway, before reserve pull) But if it is bad to omit that step, then (at the simplest level) it would be bad to have an SOS or even an RSL (which may or may not activate the reserve depending on exactly what the risers are doing). Normally you don't dump a reserve into a bag lock, but the one argument brought forward suggests that that's still better than trying to cut away if the riser covers haven't yet released. I'm not convinced. But the riser cover thing is interesting. If one thinks it is a hazard, then it would be a risk that one can't protect students from, if existing procedures are used, and there are no changes to gear. (I wonder if when there's a bag lock, simply adopting a vertical body position to examine the main, would normally clear the risers from covers.)

For Peek's review of what different instructors were taught, this is my Canadian experience, as a novice PFF Instructor: In Canada for PFF I think the PFF Instructor courses vary a little more between course conductors. The official manual is getting very old, while a new one is being written. So we don't have a standardized "Bible" to consult. One thing different from the US is that Main & Reserve side both stay with the student until he is pulled from their grasp. Main side normally releases one grip, to back off to allow for clear air during the pull. This is more consistent with later jumps where the reserve side might not redock, while the main side supervises the student's pull. If there's a PC hesistation, or hesitation of the bag lifting off, the main side will assist. If there is a pilot chute in tow that isn't clearing, main side will pull the bridle away while the reserve side pulls the reserve ripcord. The reserve side is taught about pulling the reserve ripcord in suitable emergencies, and indeed the main side is too (for a 1:1 etc). But it's the reserve side's job normally, and the main side can point to reserve side instructor to request a pull ("gun to reserve"). All this is from taking (& passing) the course twice with different instructors in 2005 and 2010, having let the temporary rating lapse the first time. In neither course did we learn about pulling the cutaway handle. (Peeling a student's hand off the cutaway is another matter and is taught.) Thus we didn't actually go through this thread's situation of a student having a baglock. That's a situation where the "main has deployed", and so it is normally now the student's responsibility to deal with a mal, yet, unusually, the student hasn't been pulled from one's grip. As for the incident that started the thread, just some opinions: I tend to lean towards the instructor(s) in such a situation leaving, as tough as it must be at the time to do. Sort of like a student going low -- hanging around doesn't help him realize the problem, and at some point it is up to the student. This all makes sense IF one thinks that only dumping the reserve into the main does add a significant risk, and that pulling two different emergency handles is beyond what is expected of any instructor. However: If both instructors were present holding the student, reserve side could 'gun' to main side to pull the cutaway, if the instructors would be familiar with doing so. Let the RSL work but be ready for the reserve if it doesn't. Or, an SOS system would be nice, just one handle to perform the correct emergency procedures. Still, in practical terms there are often multiple reaonable and realistic things to do in freefall (like pulling the reserve), even if there is a single ideal textbook answer. In this case, we on this thread don't even know yet what the book says (if there is one), or what everyone has learned in their courses...

What are US AFF instructors actually trained to do? Having an instructor pull the cutaway and then the reserve is of course a great thing to do in this situation, but was it even trained for? It is a pretty rare situation. Instructors will be trained for a reserve pull. And in practice they have helped out at times in case of a pilot chute in tow, or bag not lifting off, whether or not they actually trained to reach in to assist the main opening. So I'm curious how detailed the training gets when dealing with student mals. (I did my PFF instructor rating in Canada and we didn't get into doing things for the student beyond pulling the main, and pulling the reserve handle in some situations.) Dumping a reserve into a baglock is safer than having an AAD do the same a few thousand feet lower, if a student didn't react, but more dangerous than a proper cutaway and reserve activation, whether by the student or some pretty involved handle pulling by the instructor. At some point one has to leave things to the student to do right or wrong.

I've been following the PG Worlds controversy but am wondering if there's something specific in the skydiving world you are addressing or alluding to, or some organization you are criticizing without being explicit? I'm honestly just asking. Or is it simply a general cautionary tale about too-quick banning of things and sudden rule changes, that may not really be addressing the real sources of the problems? Or that accidents in small numbers can provide misleading evidence about underlying risks? Or that an organization can have leaders who start to become too remote from the group they are leading? Stuff like that... (The actual details of all the paragliding technology mentioned in the article -- Well, that's a huge area of discussion in itself with a lot of different opinions available...)

Better she went after the parachute than you...

Photo? As you'll know, having risers come together to one point is perfect for a symmetrical opening - can't have one riser pulled down vs. the other to cause mals or off heading openings. Yet it also provides zero resistance to line twists. So you get the best of one world, the worst of another.... An interesting design issue.

The vid on the oprah site is also a tough one to download; standard flash download software I have won't work on it. Otherwise the vid might be made available elsewhere...

There was another thread on this maybe a year or two ago. I don't think there was ever a consensus on what an acceptable bend is. It isn't that uncommon to see bent pins; it is more likely on some rigs than others. I don't normally straighten a pin, just to be sure multiple riggers haven't straightened it "just once". My limit? Who knows, maybe 5 degrees, not sure about 10. Estimating angles isn't easy if one hasn't done it -- for example, 10 degrees looks pretty bent if one draws it out on paper. So it is hard to give an objective number if one normally just eyeballs a limit.

Re: doi acknowledging how poorly the Australian two out incident was reported OK, now we're getting somewhere. The situation shows how imperfect communications can be. One can be frustrated by not seeing an injury acknowledged. Or be frustrated by Airtec not digging deeper into the situation. (Presumably what mattered to them was the data readouts from the Cypres when they got it back -- they had a serious issue to deal with and weren't as concerned with standard incident report details.) But the latest evidence we have here points away from "Airtec are a bunch of lying bastards who deliberately concealed an injury", which basically kept on being the claim made. Given that it sounds like the APF didn't officially know either, it would be the same as saying the whole association are a bunch of lying bastards. So I hope we can see that in this case Airtec probably really didn't know about the injury, for very commonplace and ordinary reasons. One should have anticipated that these things happen, and not automatically assume that it was some deliberate deception campaign. If one wants to critique Airtec and Cypres', there are probably better things out there to argue about...

Ah, but he's talking about having, say, 4 ft long risers. Since one's riser attachment are closer together than the span of the canopy, when lines twist when under tension, they'll tend to be much closer to the jumper than the canopy. (That's just one common scenario, and twists occur for different reasons in different locations.) So if your brake lines (not cutaway cables) went through housings, they would be protected and one could theoretically steer the canopy despite twists, if they occurred lower down. It's a bizarre idea, not likely to be accepted in practice, but a reasonable thought experiment.

How would an Australian incident report ever end up on the desk of Helmut Cloth? If you can find any posts about the incident at the time on the APF forum, I'm honestly interested in seeing it. (Couldn't find any myself.) Or if you can find a copy of anything printed in the APF magazine, that would be great for some official confirmation. (I'm not disputing that the injury happened.)

Do you really believe that? Airtec have stated that they were told nothing about any injuries when the incident was reported, and that no other info filtered its way up to them until it started being talked about this year. They do play their cards close to their chest. While I can't prove anything either way, I just don't see them lying in the bulletin about injuries when anyone could have blown the story in some online forum. That brings up one of the fundamental problems with managing safety. Do you speak up when something is suspected (but there's no guilty verdict yet), or do nothing while incidents happen and wait until there's clear proof?

One could also distinguish between purely civilian clubs, military or government facilities, and things such as civilian clubs organized and supported (in varying amounts) by the government. In any case, there still was a lot of early jumping in the USSR.