Define hard opening?

[bwilling 0]

There's been lots of discussions, both in the past and more recently, regarding hard openings. But what really defines what a hard opening actually is?

I have my own definition, a hard earned one based on recent events, but I won't go into that at the moment.

I personally think there are two distinct classes of 'hard openings'. There's the 'normal' deployment that happens too fast, a la snivel, snivel, whap! And there's the out of sequence deployment, the kind that results in line stretch with something over your head, and instant canopy.

One's painful and annoying, the other's potentially life threatenting.

Feel free to discuss.

"If all you ever do is all you ever did, then all you'll ever get is all you ever got."

[teason 0]

I think the term "hard opening" is a very subjective thing. I like to use different words.

If I have a perfect, on heading, stable, nicely sequenced opening but it opens so fast i poop myself, I term that a "crisp" opening. If it's a violent, out of sequence deployment my bowels shoot out my ass, I term it "spanked" as in "The goddess of whack rose up and spanked me" or "you f%$#er, I just got spanked by that pack job! What the f%$#I do to you!?!"

I stay away from the term "hard opening" because I hear too many students comment on how hard their Manta opens when they take it terminal the first time.

I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.

[fallfast69 3]

A "ringing" sound in you ears after opening is an indication of a hard opening...thus the phrase "that opening rang my bells"...that's a hard opening...right?

Jon

[Vectracide 0]

Well, everyone's experience will be differnet. I know by looking at my own videos, that if after opening I say "goddammit!".....its been a hard one. Every time.....

------------------------------

Controlled and Deliberate.....

[freakflyer9999 1]

There is the spanking that leaves a bruise or two and then there are openings that do physical damage.

At Quincy one year one of the guys from my home DZ opened in a track and actually separated his pelvis about an inch.

[pchapman 278]

Yeah it is subjective. Sometimes an opening is felt to be hard because of:
- a high snatch force (not actually part of the canopy opening)
- a bad body position (eg snapping you from a head down, shoulder low body postion)
- a fast increase in the g loading (the 'jolt') (even if the maximum g is no different than usual)
- g forces not along an the axis of the lines (shaking you from side to side as it opens)
- high g when you didn't expect it (so you aren't prepared for the g's)

The head & neck seem the most vulnerable to me - if they're not lined up with the g forces, the head snaps forward or back, easily leading to discomfort and complaints of a hard opening.

[MarkM 0]

My first hard opening was so bad it caused me to move to Florida. So how would that one be defined?

• Quote

[fueler 0]

if your feet pop into your video frame than it was just right. i HATE long, snively openings. i pitch in a track these days and i love the openings. i had a sabre2 smack the crap outta me once. saw stars, a little dazed. that was a hard opening. i didnt like that one.

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what!?

[NewGuy2005 52]

If both of my calves instantly cramp up, I call it an authoritative opening. (Does that happen to anyone else?)

[MikeForsythe 0]

When you are doing high speed/altitude test jumps and tear a groin muscle, get down on the ground and they download the data from the load cell and tell you the opening shock was 15G's!

Time and pressure will always show you who a person really is!

[yeyo 1]

i dont know if this is considered hard, for me it was. i pulled at 4k, it felt like instant canopy, colapsed the slider, looked at altimeter again and i was around 3.5k. no bruises or pain anywere, but i dont wanna feel that again. and probably 500' isnt even hard...

HISPA #93
DS #419.5

[Cashmanimal 0]

I jump a Sabre 190... notorious for "hard openings." I figured out how to pack it nice, but every once in a while, i get what I consider to be a "hard opening."

Basically, it fells okay until it starts to stand me up, at which point I get snapped so hard I can lick my sternum, or possibly even my belly-button. And if it was especially hard, I sometimes feel as though I have 1 less vertibrae because my spine has been compressed to the point where one just... exploded

It's all fun and until someone loses an eye... then it's just a game to find the eye

[D22369 0]

for me...
I pitched the pilot chute and then my chin slammed into my chest hyperextending the neck muscles and I fractured two vertebre in the middle of my back...

my definition of anything less is merely a firm opening
I hope I never experience a hard opening again


Roy

They say I suffer from insanity.... But I actually enjoy it.

[TaylorC 0]

when i say fuck right as the canopy knocks the wind out of me i know its been a hard opening

[Beatnik 2]

For me it is if you are knocked unconscious.

For me, I woke up with my right arm ripped open and blood running down it.

[wmw999 2,343]

I've had 2 hard openings. One gave me a whiplash, the other put my low-chest-strap-mounted altimeter into my chin.

Other than that, I have what most people would consider to be hard openings. I barely quarter my slider, I pull the nose out, etc. I prefer to always be open in 500' or so. I know what that sequence feels like, and anything much longer feels like a malfunction to me.

Edited to add: but I used to jump a Starlite, and I liked it.
Wendy W.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[bwilling 0]

Quote

I stay away from the term "hard opening" because I hear too many students comment on how hard their Manta opens when they take it terminal the first time.

That's the reason I started this thread, I hear that term bantered about regularly, but based on even the limited response so far, that terms means different things to different people...

My definition changed a couple of weeks ago when I had an out of sequence deployment that resulted in a 'hard opening'. There was nothing 'normal' about the opening, and it was so hard that it broke more than half the lines (yeah, spectra) on a newish canopy with just over 50 jumps on it.

And it hurt.

"If all you ever do is all you ever did, then all you'll ever get is all you ever got."

[marinho 0]

Define hard openings? Well, 3 years after mine, I still wake up everyday with neck, chest and back pain.
I cannot skydive the way I used to. Can't be standing up for too long. No more video work and finally and most important, cannot perform rigging services the way I used to.
Right now I have 8 more rigging work to do, including 2 relines and I don't know if I can make it!!!
So try do not think to much about it and always be careful when packing your canopy and when somebody packs it as well!

Gus Marinho

[tdog 0]

Ok - I have had a few "Hard Openings"... One - the chest strap pushed the chincup of my helmet over my eyes. Another left black bruises on my legs for 6 weeks where the legstraps were...

But I never have been injured to the point that a few days later I still hurt.

So, my question.... If you have to be injured to really have a "hard opening" - what would you like us to call an opening that leaves marks or moves your chincup over your eyes?

[bwilling 0]

I don't think you have to be injured for it to be called a hard opening! I was actually lucky that my canopy broke 10 lines on opening! That's probably the only reason that I wasn't injured, other than a sore neck for a couple of days...

Was it hard? Oh yeah! But I wouldn't call what I had a 'hard opening'. I had an out of sequence deployment. There was NO snivel phase to that opening at all. When I got line stretch, I had canopy. Think 'slider down base opening' fast, but at terminal. Ouch.

"If all you ever do is all you ever did, then all you'll ever get is all you ever got."

[MagicGuy 0]

I had thought a couple times that I had a hard opening, until I actually did have a hard opening.

Deployed completely stable (I have the whole thing on video). After throwing my PC I was instantly in the saddle, jerked upwards into a violent 360 that scared the shit out of me because it felt like the harness was going to fall off, followed by me reciting "Holy Shit" for the rest of the canopy ride. Canopy was instantaneously there.

Not fun!

[Andy9o8 1]

When it snaps a femur, or a spinal cord, or you die. Anything else is merely brisk.

[za_skydiver 0]

I jump a Sabre...

Some dream of flying, i live the dream...

[gemini 0]

A bright flash of light, a knee knocks out my face plate, and whiplash from head to toe...that's a hard opening!

Blue skies,

Jim

[psychoswooper 2]

I have a few definitions:

You feel it all the way down to your feet.

It either knocks you out of whack, or puts you back in.

You begin cussing immediately after opening.