I've thought about this myself. Do they work? Since some manufacturers are using them, one would assume they have been tested. Does anyone know if they have? Does anyone know of a test-jump with an induced horse-shoe and a subsequent deployment by the assister pockets?
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Assister pockets were invented by the Russians (or French) - back in the 1950s - to lift sleeved round canopies out of containers. Main pilot chutes were so lame - back then - that some Russian rigs did not even bother with main pilot chutes. Also remember that some of the Russian rigs were derived from ejection seats that used assistor pockets as the primary pilot chute/drogue and anchored the sleeve to the jumper's shoulders so that it acted as the "mother of all drogue bridles."
Also remember that a lot of ejection seats (from a lot of different countries) use some form of drogue to decellerate and stabilize the seat until they are low enough and slow enough to deploy a landable canopy.
The only modern use for assistor pockets (sewn to sleeves) is on whole aircraft recovery chutes made by Ballistic Recovery Systems (BRS).
Most of the above-mentioned systems use some form of rocket or slug gun to extract the sleeve from the container, way too sophisticated for skydivers.
Returning to modern sport gear .. I doubt is tiny assistor pockets make much difference. When I worked for Rigging Innovations (1994-1997) I don't remember Sandy Reid mentioning test jumps specifically designed to prove the worth of assistor pockets.
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