crazydiver 0 #26 January 6, 2005 what does that 1/2 and 1/2 hard and soft housing system look like? I have seen the soft housings before but never really payed attention. Is it simply that the reserve ripcord is housed in steel housing and the cutaway cables are in soft? Just curious for my little knowledge bank. Cheers, Travis Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
AggieDave 6 #27 January 6, 2005 The old Talons that I've seen with the 1/2 and 1/2 system was on the cutaway cables only, it had the hard (metal) housings down the main lift web to the handle, but once the cables went up into the rig, they were simply in cloth housings all the way to the risers. Its easy to get the cable f'ed up in that system during use, that's why pretty much everyone got their rig modified.--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline." Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
riggerrob 558 #28 January 6, 2005 Only Parachutes de France tried a soft reserve ripcord housing and they only built a few in the mid-1980s. Two patterns of soft cutaway housings were popular in the early 1990s: Rigging Innovations and Sun Path. Sun Path installed soft release housings in Javelins in the early to mid 1990s. The root of the problem was in a diagram published 3 years AFTER they introduced soft housings on Javelins. Granted, SP may have published written instructions in the manual, but this Master Rigger had to re-read it and scratch his head for several minutes every time he had to install cables. Those written instructions were WAY over the heads of weekend jumpers. Consequently, hundreds of Javelins had mis-routed release cables and pull forces up to 25 pounds. On the other hand, correctly installed cables had pull forces in the 3 to 8 pound range. Rigging Innovations had similar problems with soft release housings sewn into Flexons (introduced in 1991) and '94 Talons. R.I.'s soft housings were slightly better with a Teflon tube protecting the cable around the back of the neck. Unfortunately, the Fexon manual was abysmal. By the time I wrote the Talon 2 (a '94 Talon with all the bugs worked out) manual - in 1997 - R.I. had switched to installing semi-hard housings. Semi-hard housings include a flexible metal tube around the back of the neck. A year or so later, R.I. shifted to installing all metal release housings. Starting in 1995, I have retrofitted hard housings to dozens of Javelins, Flexons and '94 Talons. Another factor - which confused the issue - was pinched risers, a problem that we did not fully understand until after soft housings had fallen out of fashion. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Casurf1978 0 #29 January 6, 2005 I have some pics I sent over to RI if you want me to email them to you. Thanks for the advice Aggie. I'll get the risers and have three things taken care of with one visit: risers, HH and canopy installation. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites