billbooth

Come on, Bill. Don't encourage people to make their own intentional cutaway rigs. Yes, as a manufacturer, I have several 3 canopy rigs, but none of them is TSO'ed. It IS legal to use such rigs in TSO testing (as a matter of fact it is required). But this does not make them legal for non-employees to use. These rigs have two cutaway systems, and their emergency procedure "Tree" makes the tandem tree look simple. They are simply not safe for low time jumpers to operate. I am with you on one thing though...I'm also glad I learned to fly before the spin requirement was removed.

Back in the "early days", I did 50 tandems in one day at Skydive DeLand, so that it could beat George Fulcher to be the first person with 500 tandem jumps. I used 5 rigs (no drogue), 1 passenger (a 92 lb. experience female jumper), and two 182's, with an exit altitude of just 3,000 feet. The most I ever did in the hot Florida sun, packing for myself, briefing and suiting up the students, and going all the way up to 13,500 ft, was 10. Congrats on the record for charity. It gives us all a good name.

I hate to be a "spoil sport", but what you did was very dangerous...and in fact even illegal in the United States. If you want to practice cutaways, do it on the ground. I know of no TSO'ed 3 canopy rigs, and putting one together that does not permit you to breakaway from your second main canopy is crazy. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad you made it. It's just that I don't want a whole lot of people copying you, because you faced a greater danger of dying than you might face from an actual main malfunction. Here's a "for instance": The FAA has removed spin training from its licensing requirements because it found that training accidents were killing more people than actual accidental spins were.

The reason "riser slap" is extremely rare on Vector/Sigma type rigs is that the drogue is designed to collapse sooner in the deployment sequence than on Strong rigs, and therefore pulls the bag out of the container with a lot less force. For instance, the container-opening-to-line-stretch time on a Vector is around 3/4 of a second (about the same as on your solo rig), while it is less than 1/4 second on a Strong rig. This extremely fast deployment time causes the risers to snap like a whip as they deploy...and if your head is in the way, watch out.

Mini risers are OK on large harness rings sometimes. It depends on a lot of variables. Are the large rings RW-1's or RW 10's? Which standard are the mini risers made to? How much do you weigh? Do you jump an elliptical that is likely to give you a high "G" spinning malfunction? "Modern" canopies can put a lot of demands on the 3 ring system. If you're at the high end of the envelope, your 3 ring needs to be "perfect". If you are at the low end, you can "get away" with a less perfect system.

Won't hurt, but probably doesn't make any difference. Again, the important thing is to pack the bridle inside the pilot chute, up against the mesh.

If you want to avoid a knotted bridle, pack and throw your PC so that the envelope always stays "above" the bridle.The below instructions have been published in Wonderhog and Vector manuals since day one. Lay your PC fabric side down. "S" fold your bridle between the apex and the skirt. Fold your pilot chute over the "S" folded bridle. Now do whatever you do to get the PC into the pouch. Throw your pilot chute firmly to the side, and do not hold onto it a split second longer than necessary. If you follow these simple rules, a knotted bridle will be very rare. They are caused by folding your bridle somewhere other than inside against the mesh, holding on too long, or a simple "lazy" throw. I'll say it again, you cannot have a knot unless you somehow allow the bridle to get "above" the envelope during deployment. A too long bridle will make this problem more likely. I spent a lot of time determining correct bridle length 30 years ago. By the way, a knotted bridle could be fatal if it half hitched around the PC itself.

The main problem with a pull-out with a handle on top, is that the pud-ripcord pin line is quite long and very likely to entangle with the bridle at the base of the pilot chute. All this was worked out years ago guys...often through fatalities. The current systems, designed basically by trial and error (mostly error) are about as safe as you are going to get.

It probably depends on the "tightness" of your riser covers more than anything else.

The 3 preceding posts have answered your questions very well I think. You have to leave some room for personal choice in parachute gear. For instance, all our rigs are set up for Cypres. I think everyone should jump an automatic opener. However, I don't require that you have a Cypres or Vigil before you can jump my gear. I could remove the single most common cause of death on my (and everyone else's) gear by refusing to make containers for small mains...but I don't. Gear is already 10 times safer than the jumpers using it. It's how people use gear that kills them.

Before I "pushed" Collins' Lanyards of all our solo rigs, I wanted the integrated design (introduced on the Sigma Tandem System) to be thoroughly field tested in the more controlled environment of tandem. This testing was also necessary before I could introduce the Skyhook. This testing done, we started setting up all Vectors and Microns for the Collins' Lanyard installation at the same time as we introduced the Skyhook. So the Collins' has been available on all Relative Workshop containers with RSL's, with or without the Skyhook, for quite a while now. All you have to do is ask.

I left the Cypres control unit under the reserve flap to force people to open the flap, and therefore check their reserve pin at least once during a jump day. And since you should do at least one pin check a day, it's no trouble to set your Cypres while you're in there. It also allows another jumper to turn off your Cypres, without taking off your rig, in the event you have to ride down in the aircraft. Besides, the unit is more "protected" in the yoke. Tuck riser covers are very sensitive to the bulk under them. (Velcro riser covers didn't have this problem, by the way.) When we design a rig with tuck tabs, we can only choose one riser cover dimension, and we base that on the average bulk we expect. When your risers are "thick" like yours, you should ask your rigger to leave very little bulk at the top of your freebag. This will help your riser covers stay shut. If he can't pack with little bulk up top, perhaps your reserve is a bit too large. Even if you choose the "right size" reserve for your container, two supposedly "identical" reserves may have up to 10% different pack volumes, because of fabric and construction tolerances. Every bit of bulk, risers or canopy, up top affects your riser cover's ability to stay shut. So, if you want your riser covers to be as secure as possible, always choose a reserve that will fit "loosely" in your container, so that your riser covers can curve over your shoulders.

If I believed pop-tops were safer, I would build all my rigs with pop-tops. Safety is a very relative concept. Each year, somewhere around a million jumps are made on Vectors. So while a million-to-one-shot fatal malfunction might not worry a normal jumper very much (because he will never make close to a million jumps) it worries me...because even one fatality a year due to gear failure is too many. However, those very rare malfunctions should worry each and every one of us, because whether you die of a common, or of a very rare malfunction, you're still just as dead.

I believe that if you jump an RSL, you should have a Collins' Lanyard" or the French "LOR" system (which is basically two RSL lanyards, connected to two reserve closing pins, through two reserve loops) installed. An RSL that fires your reserve after one riser has released is simply not as safe as an RSL that won't fire until you are completely free of your broken away main. (People have died of this particular problem, by the way.) We have required the "Collins' Lanyard" (which automatically cuts away the other side if the RSL side riser goes first for any reason) on our tandem rigs for over three years now, because a single riser release is much more likely on a tandem rig. However, they can also happen on a solo rig. The Skyhook RSL would not be a reasonable device without the Collins' Lanyard, because in case of a single riser release on the RSL side, it would haul the reserve freebag out of the container, and plant in "right smack dab" in the middle of the remaining line groups in about a quarter of a second. This would all but guarantee a reserve malfunction. (The LOR system is not compatable with the Skyhook, because if one riser went without the other, it would try to pull the reserve bag out of still closed container with a lot of force, doing damage for sure, and possibly locking up the resever container by bending the closing pin.)

The main purpose of hip rings on a harness is to allow you to more easily tuck your knees toward your chest. They are great for freestyle. However, freestyle is the last thing you want a student to do on a tandem jump. So obviously I don't use them on the Sigma student harness, because they make the students legs (and therefore the stability of the tandem pair) harder to control. My harness is designed to keep the student in an arch (legs back) until opening, and then lift the knees upward to a comfortable sitting position for the ride down and landing.

Skyhook on older Vector II's? We are working on such a mod kit. Right now Skyhooks are only available for Vector III's, Microns, and Sigma Tandems. Our website will let you know when Vector II kits are available.

You're probably right, Bart...but I don't know if it would help very much. It seems that safety is the last reason anyone buys gear nowadays. I'm glad it's important to you. The safer you are, the longer you can skydive.

The French system is very different from the Skyhook.

Mark is right, the tuck under flap on the Vector will not move upward in response to a door strike (or a foot) like the tuck down flaps on the other rigs. If your reserve pin protector flap can move upward, your pin can be pushed out, even if the flap stays "closed". This fact makes the Vector reserve flap much more secure. Also, the tuck under design on the Vector is just as snag proof as the tuck down design, maybe even more so, because it is much harder to accidentally dislodge. But there is another, even more important reason. When you tuck the top reserve flap down into a pouch on the reserve bottom flap, the top flap must come out of the pouch for the container to open. When you tuck under, as I do on the Vector III, nothing has to come out of anything for the reserve container to open. Airtec tests every new rig design before they OK it for a Cypres. They have had several rigs with tuck-down flaps total when bench tested with a Cypres cutter. These same rigs would open fine when the ripcord was pulled, but the Cypres doesn't release the closing loop on top of the last flap like a ripcord does (on most rigs). It releases (cuts) it many layers down. The drag of the top flap coming out of the pocket, coupled with the added drag of the cut loop unlacing through several grommets while both are being "pinched" by the pilot chute spring, was enough to total the rigs. Tuck down rigs work fine most of the time, but a Cypres firing, with a bad pack job, an old, weak pilot chute spring, sand or mud in the pocket, or a too long reserve closing loop, might add up to disaster. I tried tuck down flaps years ago. They just didn't work as well in all the worst cane scenarios my wicked little mind could come up with. I don't know about you, but I want my reserve container to open every time, not just most of the time. But then again, perhaps I worry too much.

You've got a deal. I'll go yell at somebody tomorrow morning, and we'll send your rig right out, finished or not!

My hand deployed pilot chute patent expired years ago, but I never charged anyone for it anyway. The "Crazer" patent was issued to Bill Gargano and then licensed to Ted Strong years later. It has also expired. The reason the Gargano patent is hard to find, is that it is really a ram air canopy patent with a kill-line pilot chute added almost as an after thought.

The funniest pilot chute handle I ever saw was a Barbie doll head...and as we all know, a little head never hurt anybody.

I want to know too. I find myself actually hoping someone with a Skyhook equipped Vector will actually have a malfunction. So far no one has reported one to me, which is funny, because about 25% of the rigs we are shipping have Skyhooks. If this keeps up, I going to be able to claim that rigs with Skyhooks don't have malfunctions. So everyone out there with Skyhooks, pack sloppy and pull low! I need data! PS (Just Kidding)

Natural materials...60 day repack? Probably, but let's not get picky.

A sand filled hackey would be way too heavy. When I put the first hackey sack handle on a pilot chute years ago, I used a standard hackey fill with dried seeds or beans. I was much lighter than one filled with sand would be, yet still much too heavy. It didn't want to stay in the pouch, and it tended to fall down below the canopy on opening and tangle with the lines. We had to learn to make our own hackeys and fill them with cotton. I like the idea of a clear handle though. If I made one, I'd use the clear vinyl we cover our warning lables with. However, I fear that all the stitching and inside raw edges will give it a rather ragged look. The neat thing about how a leather hackey is made, is that the stiches, and edges, and knot don't show. They will through the clear vinyl.