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Both cutaway and reserve pads same colour - pro's/con's please

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Dark navy blue rig and webbing, dark blue jumpsuit.

Thinking about cutaway and reserve handles both in bright white to make em easy to see when the fan is being hit.
Someone said i should get the cutaway red, which is what my last rig was, so i could do that but i kind of like the symmetry of both being in white and know they will stand out very well from my rig and suit.

Thoughts (ideally from those people who made the decision to have both cutaway and reserve pads the same colour and if it made any difference during EP's).

Thanks

"Skydiving is a door"
Happythoughts

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Dave, any decision in skydiving based purely on making something look nice, is usually a bad one. There are several good reasons for having different coloured handles but not so many for having them the same. Just because someone else says they have the same coloured handles and had no problems during an emergency does not necessarily mean someone else won't. You're a big boy, whatever your choice, just make sure you are prepared for the consequences. (I have a dark green and light grey cutaway/reserve pads on my Voodoo. I didn't look at them when I had my cutaway so I can't really comment).
Skydiving Fatalities - Cease not to learn 'til thou cease to live

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I'd like to think i'd be able to find them whatever colour they are - even if they were invisible - as the sh*t's hitting the fan. Bear in mind for some people (those with boobs) they are invisible....

---------------------------------------
Ex-University of Bristol Skydiving Club
www.skydivebristoluni.com

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I also have a dark blue/navy blue rig, and I went with red for the handles and the freefly pad on my PC. My thought was that if someone else was looking for the handles I wanted it to be easy to see, and I trust that they could figure out from my body position what was the right handle to pull first. I don't think the two handles being different colors will make that part easier or harder for them.

Regarding EPs...the phat daddy handles are padded in such a way that you get the best grip from the hand on the same side. The reserve handle's padding is arranged to make it more "left handed" than right-handed (and the cutaway more right handed than left). Maybe this is how all padded handles are made, I dunno. So depending on how you do your EPs this may be a factor.

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I think that making the handles differnt colors, or the same colors, for that matter, is a preference of style. If it looks better, make them the same color- if you like one green and one blue... fine. It's not like coloring your handles funny changes the order of operations during a cutaway. Know your procedures, and be able to find your handles(ie contrast helps)... after that, colors don't make a difference.

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Dark navy blue rig and webbing, dark blue jumpsuit.

Thinking about cutaway and reserve handles both in bright white to make em easy to see when the fan is being hit.
Someone said i should get the cutaway red, which is what my last rig was, so i could do that but i kind of like the symmetry of both being in white and know they will stand out very well from my rig and suit.

Thoughts (ideally from those people who made the decision to have both cutaway and reserve pads the same colour and if it made any difference during EP's).

Thanks



Recommend a color that contrasts with your harnes AND jumpsuit colors... Beyond that, I don't see that it matters much (including one handle vs the other).

HOWEVER, I would do a search on this site for B.Booth's commentary on handle type selection. He's got a fairly complete commentary on the use of: hard handle for reserve and soft handle for cut-a-way systems. There is a reason for each based on function/use. You may or may not agree, but I figure his opinion is one to be considered (at least until I have jumped and invented/tested more stuff than he has ;) ).

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

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I will go one step further. I like the idea of different colors for the cutaway and reserve, but when I order my own rig, I will order a d-ring for the reserve. I like the idea of different shapes. My thinking is that when something happens, I want to be able to tell what I'm grabbing by feel since I may not be able to look to see what I'm grabbing. Yeah, I know the pillows face different directions, but there's no mistaking a d-ring for a pillow. Maybe it's just because I'm still new at this. If you look at the throttle quadrant on piston airplanes, the throttle/mixture/prop controls are not only different colors, but different shapes as well. There's a reason for that!

BTW, like Allison said, white ain't going to stay white for very long!
Burn the land and boil the sea,
You can't take the sky from me.

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In a crisis situation, your brain reverts back to training. If you are spinning hard at the edge of blacking out, your brain may react best to color. Why cut out one variable. It is an EMERGENCY handle.

I usually suggest Red to all of my customers. Otherwise vary to pink or orange (very close on the color wheel) if you have to be that fashion driven.

For the soft reserve handle, my color of choice is silver. It matches everything and well.... it's silver.

Look red.

Grab red.

Look silver..

well...

you get it.

By the way. Red and Silver look fabulous with Navy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Peace and Blue Skies!
Bonnie ==>Gravity Gear!

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Oh yeah. I do have 9 reserve rides. Mostly I haven't had to look. But I have also been knocked out twice in freefall. Things get fuzzy in that state. Food for thought.



and I liked the comment above about "others being able to see them.. " specially in that state: passed out.

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Oh yeah. I do have 9 reserve rides. Mostly I haven't had to look. But I have also been knocked out twice in freefall. Things get fuzzy in that state. Food for thought.



and I liked the comment above about "others being able to see them.. " specially in that state: passed out.



Agreed. I friend of mine was knocked out on our skydive and I went to help him. He had silver which was what I was looking for because it is most common.

White get dirty it will be dark grey later from packing and touch them. my bright yellow cutway pillow is turing dark grey.

Gunnery Sergeant of Marines
"I would like it if I were challenged mentally at my job and not feel like I'm mentally challenged." - Co-worker

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> But I have also been knocked out twice in freefall.

I would also add that I have had to deploy one experienced jumper's reserve (she was out of it.) If she had two same-color handles I would have had to do the "OK, reserve handle is on _my_ left, but she's facing me so it's that one . . ." (Not a common situation, I know.)

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Thanks for the input everyone, and to GG for the handy hint on silver for the reserve pad, that's a good idea.
ALso to the guy that pointed out white will get dirty from packing and touching etc, and that someone may be looking to deploy for me if i'm knocked out and will be able to react quicker to colours etc - good points which i hadn;t considered.

I'm going to make the cutaway red and probably go silver on the reserve now. Cheers all!

"Skydiving is a door"
Happythoughts

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> But I have also been knocked out twice in freefall.

I would also add that I have had to deploy one experienced jumper's reserve (she was out of it.) If she had two same-color handles I would have had to do the "OK, reserve handle is on _my_ left, but she's facing me so it's that one . . ." (Not a common situation, I know.)



Good point... I guess in doubt, you could pull both and hope for the best, but hope as a stragety and/or rigging in freefall isn't the best of plans.

Personally... IMO... the traditional silver metal D-ring for the reserve rip cord and a soft (non-loop) pud for the cut-away handle is the way to go & choose a color for the cut-away pud that contrasts with your rig & jumpsuit.

I always get Bright Orange as my selected color for the cut-away pud because I'm a 98.9% Black Rig & will never get an international orange jumpsuit kinda-guy... wouldn't work for Sparky, but works for me... :D

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Thanks for the input everyone, and to GG for the handy hint on silver for the reserve pad, that's a good idea.
ALso to the guy that pointed out white will get dirty from packing and touching etc, and that someone may be looking to deploy for me if i'm knocked out and will be able to react quicker to colours etc - good points which i hadn;t considered.

I'm going to make the cutaway red and probably go silver on the reserve now. Cheers all!



I won't speak for GG, but I SUSPECT that when she (and others) speak of "silver" for the reserve handle, they are refering to a metal handle, not a fabric pad/pub/pillow/etc... (just for clarity).

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

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You've already figured out they should be different. But I still recomend a metal handle for the reserve. It easier to grab with either or both hand and you can hook it with fingers or thumbs as necessary.

But, it 1980 a guy showed up with his new rig. This was the years of bounce and blend, so the rig was earth tones and the two handles were identical earth tone pads. This was the first rig I ever saw with a soft reserve handle and at that time it was built like a cutaway handle with out any cable slack in the handle. I thought it was stupid then and still do. But also at that time handle positions were standardized. I had a custom rig built with the cutaway one the left and the reserve on the right. It was supposed to have a right hand throw out and my thinking was alternating hands - main right hand, cutaway left, reserve right - and my right hand was always deploying the canopies. Of course they screwed up the order and built it with a left hand throw out! I kept it and for a few years I was jumping a full reverse left hand rig, a "normal" right hand rig, and a right hand ripcord main rig interchangably. Only reached the wrong way once and didn't even finish the reach.

I had a rigging customer a few years ago who was ordering a new rig and was going to get a red cutaway handle. I told him he probably shouldn't do that and he asked why. I reminded him that his jumpsuit was the same color red.:S

Your idea of contrast is okay but you should also be able to tell them apart.

BTW I always thought calling a reserve ripcord "silver" in training was silly:P and it isn't only people with boobies might not see a handle. Some are hard to see and they may very well not be where you expect them to be.
I'm old for my age.
Terry Urban
D-8631
FAA DPRE

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