(R)STEERING LINE BROKE TODAY,,WHAT WOULD YOU DO.

[awagnon 0]

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I'm curious about this,too. Could have been other damage,....

I also wondered about a right spin with a right brake line breaking on opening. Was the chute carefully inpected for other damage or just the brake line repaired?

Alton

"Luck favors the prepared."

[davelepka 4]

The only real mistake I can see so far is when you named this thread, and added "WHAT WOULD YOU DO".

What I would do, or any other jumper would do is of no consequence. You only need to worry about what you would do, and seeing as you are uninjured, you did the right thing.

I never would have cut that away, but that's because I can make a safe landing with a broken steerting line, or several broken lines.

However, what I can do has nothing to do with the correct solution to your problem. Some other jumpers have suggested ways you might have arrested the spin, or that there was no need to cutaway 'so far' above your decision altitude. Well, all of that is bullshit.

You know very well that a broken steering line is a major problem for you. Even if you do stop the spin, what then? You still need to cutaway, and you've just wasted time stopping a spin.

Of course, being so far above your desicion altitude, you've got the time to waste, right? Nope. Not at all. Your desicion altitude is the absolute lowest you want to initiate your emergency procedures, not the altitude you want to wait for to initiate your emergency procedures.

Here's a good rule for you to use for both your main and reserve - open a parachute as soon as it is safe to do so. If you track away from an RW jump, and you are in clear air by 3000ft, pull at that time. Do not wait for 2500ft or 2000ft 'just because'.

The same goes for your reserve. As soon as you realize that you will need to cutaway and/or open your reserve, do it as soon as possible.

The reason being that if you encounter any delay in opening or cutting away a parachute, the extra altitude will give you more time to sort things out. Important things like saving your life, and if you need every foot you have to make that happen, you'll be glad you didn't waste them trying to stop the spin of a canopy you're going to cutaway anyway.

You did the right thing for you this time. Continue to learn things about your gear, how it works, and the different things you can do with it. This way if you find yourself in a similar situation in the future, your increased knowledge and capability will make more options available to you.

Let's face it, if you can avoid the expense, hassle and risk (yes, there's added risk) of a cutaway, then you should. If you cannot avoid the cutaway, then get on with it and screw what anyone else thinks.

[vortexr1 0]

Thanks for that advice.Sounds like solid advice..Heres a couple of pics a guy got of my cut away..Sorry not actually the cut away..Just my rig and me landing the reserve,,,

[Bolas 5]

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what if you cutaway and you had a broken toggle on the reserve?

Then you figure out how to land it as safe as possible.

If a problem with a main that you deem unlandable safely, chop it.

If a problem with a reserve, fix it.

"In air rigging" should only be done on reserves.

[Cutaway68 4]

The question that I have is "what caused the broken steering lines?".

I don't want this to come across the wrong way, but when I looked at your profile you have indicated that you prefer to freefly. Having only 29-30 jumps and already 19 of them are freefly jumps then that makes me wonder what your deployment speed was or your body position. I know that there is an age old argument about how early someone should begin freeflying and that may never be answered, but it may have played a factor in this incident.

While I agree that freeflying is great, I also believe that everyone should have a firm knowledge on flat flying.

You need to make sure that after you have flattened out you still leave enough time to slow down to a good deployment speed.

I don't know that this was the cause but it is a possibility and you need to make sure to keep this in mind.

You did the right thing for you.

Don't Pull Low... Unless You ARE!!!
The pessimist says, "It can't get any worse than this." The optimist says, "Sure, it can."
Be fun, have safe.

[timmyfitz 0]

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The only real mistake I can see so far is when you named this thread, and added "WHAT WOULD YOU DO".

What I would do, or any other jumper would do is of no consequence.

To the OP. I don't see a problem with your thread title or that you ask what other people would do. You obviously did what you were trained to do and it worked out well for you.

Asking what other people would do in this situation (or any situation) is a great way to learn and advance your skills. Nothing wrong with it at all.

Stick with doing things the way you taught during your student training for now until you gain more experience and knowledge. Some of that will come from asking "what would you do?"

Never stop asking questions, especially how someone else would do something. This is one of the cheapest ways you will learn. Never stop learning, ask "what would you do" often.

[vortexr1 0]

Thanks for that. Also i mainly belly fly. I was falling straight and stable when i deployed my pilot chute.the rigger said the nose might of not got. tucked.

[likearock 1]

Did you ever figure out why you felt your canopy dive to the right after snapping the right-side brake line?

[hookitt 0]

Since we can't have a one on one conversation, I'll suggest a few things.


Practice flaring with 1 toggle and one riser. .

A control check, including flaring will help you decide if landing that configuration is a reasonable option. Performing a PLF is a good landing by the way. Practice PLFs. Most people do not do this and at some point really wish they had the skill to perform a proper PLF.

Using 1 toggle and one riser is easy to control and stop a lighter loaded canopy. Just using risers is quite challenging. Most, and I do mean most, people do not know how to land a canopy of any wingloading with risers alone. Flaring to hard, stalling and falling backwards from 8 - 10 feet hurts. Believe that most people that will tell you to use just the risers often have no clue how to do so.

Take this new oppurtunity to practice flying and flaring with just risers. Practice using 1 toggle and 1 riser to fly and flare. If a brake line breaks again, you'll find that a lower wingloaded canopy is so much easier to deal with if you use the remaining toggle.

To those who say it's not symmetrical, go try it up at altitude and sort it out. Lighter wingloads are easy easy (that's 2 easys) to deal with.

If I was to land my 240 7 cell with a broken brake line, I would use 1 toggle and 1 riser. I have done this already and it's great. I have landed on just risers for the heck of it. It works but is much more challenging.

If I was in my old Xaos, I'd possibly opt to cutaway. On my Stiletto, I'd be more apt to land it. Again on my 240, i would land it for sure.

Hope this helps.
Good luck.

My grammar sometimes resembles that of magnetic refrigerator poetry... Ghetto

[popsjumper 2]

Good job, Shawn.

One other thing about using rear risers....

You will want to discover your rear-riser stall point before you attempt to land on rears.

It's much safer landing rears knowing where the stall point is as opposed to NOT knowing.

Talk to your local instructors BEFORE you take any of this advice in here. Much of it is good, very good, but none of it includes ALL you need to know. This thread has given you some good stuff on just what questions to ask.

Have fun, dude, and fly safe!

My reality and yours are quite different.
I think we're all Bozos on this bus.
Falcon5232, SCS8170, SCSA353, POPS9398, DS239

[Cheach 0]

My cutaway-on like my 12th jump- was due to the same thing. I went to release my brakes and the left brake decided it didn't want to be up there. I started to spin a bit and I remembered I was suppose to use my rear risers. I tried with all my might-but its wasn't happening and I started to spin more- so at 2500 I chopped. When I got down and told them what happened and I remembering telling the upper number jumpers, "Yah...I am sure YOU could have landed it on the rear risers-I tried and knew for sure I wouldn't be able to." I am sure some of them still thought I shouldn't have cutaway, but it is my life. When the canopy was hung up, we discovered it wasn't JUST the steering line, but also a few others.

I woke up next to a blowup doll Ash....so what do you think?

[icevideot 0]

Someone mentioned trying to land with one toggle and one riser. I have no reason to think they haven't done this with good results.

I will say that it would require quite a bit of coordination to do and I wouldn't recommend it for most people. Staying even with one hand (the riser side) having a control stroke of a foot or likely less and the other hand (toggle side) having in the neighborhood of 3 feet leaves a lot of room for error in my opinion.

That actually caused the first skydiving injury I ever witnessed as a jumper loaded about 1:1 hooked herself into the ground mid-flare. (also the first time I saw a compound tib-fib)

I would definitely agree that there is value in trying this up high and make your own decision reguarding which you feel the most confident with.

I teach students to land with two toggles or two risers but never one of each. I think anyone who couldn't manage to land with risers alone would not be likely to better with vastly different response from one side to the other.

Again, I would like to say this is my opinion based on observations and personal experience and not meant to say there aren't other ways to view this.

Cheers,
Robin

"... this ain't a Nerf world."

[DanG 1]

I agree that landing with two toggles, or two risers is preferable, but there's no reason not to practice using one of each. If anything, you'll learn more about how your canopy flies.

I was forced to land with one toggle and one riser once under a Spectre 150. I had a long spot, and foolishly waited until I was well under cutaway altitude to pop my brakes. My right brake was knotted up and wouldn't come undone. Being too low to cutaway, I had no choice but to land on one brake and one toggle. It worked out fine, but it wasn't ideal. That experience taught me two things: 1) even if your canopy looks good, do a full control check above your decision altitude, and 2) practice flying your canopy in lots of different ways because you never know what you might be faced with.

- Dan G

[jtval 0]

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what if you cutaway and you had a broken toggle on the reserve?

Then you figure out how to land it as safe as possible.

If a problem with a main that you deem unlandable safely, chop it.

If a problem with a reserve, fix it.

"In air rigging" should only be done on reserves.

Of Course I knew that. I was asking the question to get the student to find the answers.

I didn't know, until he posted pictures that he was from mesquite. My home dz.

My photos

My Videos

[hookitt 0]

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Someone mentioned trying to land with one toggle and one riser. I have no reason to think they haven't done this with good results.

Yeah that was me. You're right, it does take some coordination and yes I realize many skydivers lack it. They also are the same ones that take 100 jumps to finally land on target standing up and get excited about it. I don't encourage blind canopy control, I do encourage exploring the range of any parachute that is above your head. That includes a reserve canopy.

Practice it and use if you want to. It's especially fine on larger canopies.Do not be the person to just pull on controls for the first time near the ground and see what happens.

Here's a for instance. After a cutaway, a skydiver then flies a perfectly good reserve back to the landing zone. When it's time to flare, he crams on the brakes. What happens? The canopy stalls and the pilot crashes onto their back. The other, and much better option would have been a canopy control check on the way back to the landing zone to figure out the control range. After determining how the parachute will fly, flare it accordingly and land safe.

What do I teach students on their big ass navigators? Risers, or toggles, not both. Also I highly encourage canopy control checks. When they have more jumps, I offer up other suggestions to work on. 1 toggle and 1 riser etc... plus stalling, and other fun canopy maneuvers.

There is no reason to stuff yourself into the ground with a control line malfunction. If the toggle is stuck, you better know if you can land it safely, or if you should cutaway instead. If you perform a reasonable canopy control check with a busted brake line and determine you can in fact flare with 1 toggle and a riser. ... set up for PLF and do what you practiced.

If you choose to land rear risers instead... set up for PLF and do what you practiced.

Hope that clears it up slightly.

My grammar sometimes resembles that of magnetic refrigerator poetry... Ghetto

[yoink 321]

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That experience taught me two things: 1) even if your canopy looks good, do a full control check above your decision altitude, and 2) practice flying your canopy in lots of different ways because you never know what you might be faced with.

3) Carry a hook knife?

I'd much rather be trying this uneven flaring from full flight, rather than in half brakes.

[Harmless 0]

I once, inadvertently, landed on one toggle and one riser...

After doing a 90 onto final with the front riser, I waited while the canopy recovered. As the speed from the turn bled off, I started applying toggles and immediately began to carve left . I corrected on the right but it still didn't feel right... stood it up but the flair was extremely uneven.

The knot that holds the toggle on the brake line had become lodged in the guide ring, so when I pulled on the right toggle, I was directly pulling on the riser.

"Damn you Gravity, you win again"

[DanG 1]

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3) Carry a hook knife?

Not sure if this is a serious question or not. I'll assume it is. Yes, I carry a hook knife.

At 1000ft AGL, cutting lines was not preferable to flaring practice. I gave it a few good practice flares to get down the timing and amount of flare required from the different inputs. Trying to cut the stuck steering line and missing may well have killed me. At the time I had about 500 landings on ram air parachutes, and cut exactly zero lines with a hook knife. I put a lot more faith in my being able to land the parachute as it was than trying to in-air rig while in the landing pattern.

- Dan G

[lintern 1]

Have a look at this video and it will make you think about landing on rear risers...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0YlMrwP7RI

Like the OP, he had a brake toggle fall off so he tried to land on rear risers, but he stalled his canopy and broke his leg.

You can see this from about 1m 50sec into the video. It aint very clear fottage but you get the idea.

If you're going to attempt a rear riser landing, make sure you have tried it up high before hand and are confident about doing it.

[fencebuster 7]

I think you did the right thing. At about 100 jumps I had a broken steering line on my Spectre 210. I was just above decision height and released the other brake and practiced rear riser flares. I decided to land it on rear risers with a slide in/PLF landing and it worked out OK. I probably could have stood it up.

At about 600 jumps on my Sabre2 with Skyhook, I had a knotted toggle that I could not clear. I determined that I could fly it on rear risers but was unsure of how it was going to land on rears -- it seemed to easy to stall, so I cut away trusting that my Skyhook and reserve would get me home. I had already had 2 cutawys, so I felt pretty confident about my gear. Again, it worked out fine. I walked away from both but in both cases, I made what I felt was an informed decision based on how the canopy was flying and my evaluation of my skills on that particular canopy in that particular configuration under those particular conditions.

Good work. every landing you walk away from is a good one whether it be on the Reserve or main canopy.

Charlie Gittins, 540-327-2208
AFF-I, Sigma TI, IAD-I
MEI, CFI-I, Senior Rigger
Former DZO, Blue Ridge Skydiving Adventures

[Andy9o8 0]

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If you're going to attempt a rear riser landing, make sure you have tried it up high before hand and are confident about doing it.

...and unless you're a very experienced canopy pilot, always keep your feet and knees firmly together and PLF. (Even without a PLF, a lot of broken/sprained ankles would be prevented or minimized if, all other things being equal, the jumper had his feet and knees tightly together - a basic technique woefully under-taught, under-emphasized and under-utilized since students stopped jumping round canopies.)

[fcajump 153]

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So on my 3 rd and final jump of the day.. I pulled at 4000' had a VERY hard opening..( i was stable and in good position) people say it was because the nose wasnt tucked,,Anyways......My right steering toggle snapped upon deployment of the canopy...I reached for the left toggle..My chute was diving to the RIGHT.....I was at about 3300' and decided to cut away... When i landed we had tons to talk about..My question is,, DID i do the right thing? Some said i should of used the rear risers..I didnt really think to much about it,,I saw the problem and decided to cut away.. I have never landed with my rear risers and felt more comfortable cutting away...I have only 28 jumps..Just curious what everyone thinks....Damn crazy when you have to decided to cut away..lol..

Nothing that other's haven't already said, but a vote for:

Is it controllable and landable (and not likely to get worse)?

Yes -> land it.
No -> cut it before your hard deck.

Now, if you have never flow with rears, you have not fully learned your canopy and need to do so ASAP. INCLUDING FLARE. (practice up high, this will be much different than toggle flare, the stall on rears can be very abrupt.)

Done it twice... jumps 20 & 21 on a Goliath (as the name implies, its BIG). No problems, but a PLF was helpful on the second. (Rigger didn't change the second line when the first broke... so it broke the next week and he got to change it then...)

Now, given a smaller, twitchy canopy... maybe not. (see above test)

Good that you are asking questions. Better that when faced with it, you evaluated and took action to save your butt!!

Jim

Always remember that some clouds are harder than others...

[Dodatt 0]

pull silver lol awesome

[skycc 0]

I believe you absolutely made the right decision.

FYI, I had about close to 1000 jumps when I decided to land a small elliptical canopy called a Batwing on risers (broken steering line), this was about 10-11 years ago. Poor decision for me apparently, that I still regret many years later as I deal with daily back pain that can't be fixed. Wish I could go back and chop it.

cc

[patworks 5]

When that happens to me; it has twice, I chop.

I've had several friends break bones with RR Landings. With 1,500+ Round canopy-landdings, my ankles won't tolerate any more abuse. I do like walking.

Also, i jump a very lightly loaded canopy; you can do chin-ups on the risers. Moreover I am very comfortable with cut aways and reserve rides having experienced 3 dozen or so.

Pat Works nee Madden Travis Works, Jr .B1575, C1798, D1813, Star Crest Solo#1, USPA#189,