brent@poseidon.UUCP (Brent P. Callaghan) (11/06/85)
I've been watching a bit of TV the last few days:
There was an episode of "The Brain" on PBS last night
(great series). One sequence used a 1st jump as
an example of a stressful situation. The exit &
deployment were fine, but the poor devil got brainlocked
into his count and pulled his reserve anyway. The reserve
proceeded to wrap itself around his lines and stayed
that way until a few hundred feet when it caught some
air. There he was with two uncontrollable canopies.
The sequence ended with him landing on the roof of a
building and an edited-in "OOOF!". I can't imagine
the same outcome if he had cutaway.
Cutting away the main with two canopies out is a
safe procedure. The main goes off to the rear and
the student swings forwards under the reserve. There's
no chance of the main snagging the reserve.
I enjoyed "Amazing Stories" the other night where the
gunner in the ball turret got stuck and the undercarriage
wouldn't come down. Very suspensful. It's a pity he
didn't know that the hole that got torn in his parachute
would have reduced his descent rate (assuming it was near
the periphery) and given hime some directional control
to boot!
I think the idea of rocket reserves is a joke. Reserves
open plenty fast enough already. I can just imagine this:
cramped up in a 185 with your buddy's rocket reserve &
AOD just a few inches from your face when the pilot decides
to spiral down... or being in the middle of a quadraplane
with a rocket reserve aimed at your butt, then the cowboy
stack pilot decides to spiral...
Blue skies!
--
Made in New Zealand --> Brent Callaghan
AT&T Information Systems, Lincroft, NJ
{ihnp4|mtuxo|pegasus}!poseidon!brent
(201) 576-3475wmbabineau@watmath.UUCP (W. Michael Babineau) (11/08/85)
> .................................... The exit & > deployment were fine, but the poor devil got brainlocked > into his count and pulled his reserve anyway. The reserve > proceeded to wrap itself around his lines and stayed > that way until a few hundred feet when it caught some > air. There he was with two uncontrollable canopies. I have seen this type of thing happen on several ocassions where second or third jump students were doing TRCP's and went for the reserve ripcord ( front mounted reserves ) instead of the TRC. I have yet see to the reserve and main tangle in this type of situation ( too bad I missed the show ). The instructors at the DZ I started out at always told the student not to cut away if the main and reserve were both deployed o.k. ....makes for a soft landing but its no fun to spend an hour in the woods with a chain saw trying to get the poor sucker out of the trees......... -- W. Michael Babineau Multiprocessor Systems Group, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waterloo. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- USENET: {ihnp4,allegra,decvax,utzoo,utcsri}!watmsg!wmbabineau !watmath!wmbabineau
mark@nyit.UUCP (Mark Smith) (11/10/85)
> Cutting away the main with two canopies out is a > safe procedure. The main goes off to the rear and > the student swings forwards under the reserve. There's > no chance of the main snagging the reserve. I'm no expert on the subject, but I've really been checking up on it. Isn't it better to come down on your main, that is if everything is okay with it, than to come down on your reserve. I was instructed to deflate the reserve by pulling on the lines furthest from me and bunching it up between my legs. It made sense to me, and that's the way I'm going to do it because that's the way my jumpmaster expects it, but is what you say better? -- Mark Smith NYIT Computer Graphics Laboratory Old Westbury, New York ...{philabs,sbcs}!nyit!mark
brent@poseidon.UUCP (Brent P. Callaghan) (11/13/85)
>> Cutting away the main with two canopies out is a >> safe procedure. The main goes off to the rear and >> the student swings forwards under the reserve. There's >> no chance of the main snagging the reserve. > > I'm no expert on the subject, but I've really been > checking up on it. Isn't it better to > come down on your main, that is if everything is > okay with it, than to come down on your reserve. I > was instructed to deflate the reserve by pulling on > the lines furthest from me and bunching it up between > my legs. It made sense to me, and that's the way > I'm going to do it because that's the way my jumpmaster > expects it, but is what you say better? > If you have been trained never to touch your capewells then it's better to stick with the way you have been trained. I have had a front mounted reserve pop out a couple of times and managed to grab it and hold it between my legs before any lines unstowed. At my previous club I trained students to pull the reserve in if it was not inflated. That's easy to do. I'm not sure how easy it would be to collapse a fully inflated reserve. I'm sure it would not be an easy job given just a few minutes of canopy time. I doubt if it leaves enough time to steer away from obstacles and turn into wind for a landing. The possibility of injury is much less the sooner the student is under a controllable canopy. Our student reserves were steerable 26' LoPos. They had the same yellow webbing steering loops as on the main. Two canopies out occurs most commonly because the student dumps the reserve during deployment of the main - perhaps because of a pilot chute hesitation. I never saw anyone have any problen chopping the main or landing under their reserve. The only hassle was chasing down the main afterwards. Do you know what kind of reserve you have ? It should at least be steerable so you can turn into wind for landing. -- Made in New Zealand --> Brent Callaghan AT&T Information Systems, Lincroft, NJ {ihnp4|mtuxo|pegasus}!poseidon!brent (201) 576-3475