What is the most common cause for malfunctions?

[beowulf 1]

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Poor body position, poor gear maintenance, and poor packing.

Derek

Straight out of just about every first jump course sylabus I have ever seen.

Man I am in trouble I cant pack for shit, always have bad body position and use rental gear that is border line worn out. No mals thus far, knock on wood. Has there ever been anyone that has made it past 1000 jumps without a mal?

There have been a lot of people that have made it past 1000 jumps with out a malfunction. I have yet to have a malfunction and I have almost 1600 jumps.

[grimmie 176]

A friend of mine has 7,000+ jumps...no mals.
And no, I didn't just jinx him, we discuss it a lot waiting and hoping for his first!

[airtwardo 6]

There have been a lot of people that have made it past 1000 jumps with out a malfunction. I have yet to have a malfunction and I have almost 1600 jumps.

and on the other hand, I made it to 3000 with only 14!

~ If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn? ~

[crustySCSA69 0]

here is every idea, conveniently summarized:

"improperly stowed brakes."
"Poor body position"
"poor gear maintenance"
"poor packing/packing technique/sloppy packing"
"a high-speed spin"
"hard openings"
"collapsible pilot chutes not cocked"
"Parachutes even when properly packed can fail
to open"
"(2) Avoid pulling any suspension lines around when
dressing your stabilizers to avoid a line-over"
"(3) Make sure your slider is quartered correctly and
tight against the stops as you make the first
S-fold,"
"(5) Check your kill line to make sure you have it
cocked"
"Always take the twists out of your brake lines to
avoid tension knots"

so, my recommendation is:
jump a rag-in-a-bag
then absolutely NONE of these apply (or anything else I can think of)

plus, you will them make yourself impervious to the factor that causes 50% + of fatalities these days.. screwing yourself into the ground under a perfectly good parachute ... (if you consider those loopy little dive bombers perfectly good)

it's a big job, but if we all start co-operating, we can bring an end to this era of the square aberration.

my name is Crusty and I approve of this message.

[erdnarob 1]

Most of the malfunctions are caused by a lack of knowledge and maintenance of the equipment. I have seen so many jumpers who pack like parrots which repeat sentences without knowing what they do. Not their fault since they were shown that way. If you don't know for instance how many attachments points your parachute has or how many lines your parachute has in one set... you will probably be prone to a malfunction soon or later. Same if you don't do a preventative maintenance to check if a componant has to be replaced.

Learn from others mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all.

[sundevil777 94]

An important point nobody has mentioned so far is to untwist your steering lines regularly. Many people don't do this often or at all.

People are sick and tired of being told that ordinary and decent people are fed up in this country with being sick and tired. I’m certainly not, and I’m sick and tired of being told that I am

[Andy_Copland 0]

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An important point nobody has mentioned so far is to untwist your steering lines regularly. Many people don't do this often or at all.

I stress this all the time to folks, they are usually surprised when they start to run the twist down to the toggle and it starts to look like spaghetti

1338

People aint made of nothin' but water and shit.

Until morale improves, the beatings will continue.

[millertime24 8]

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What is the most common cause for malfunctions?

Angry and/or un-fed packers?

Muff #5048

[Will_Evo 0]

Lots of good info in this thread, especially for someone like me who is currently learning how to pack for his A license.

I noticed when I sat down with a rigger, that you can spot alot of mals, from points in the packing process. Its very interesting stuff. Anyone know if a detailed study has been done to isolate mals to their main source of orgin. I understand that mals can happen for multiple reasons, as well as coupled processes, but there has to be a main contributing factor to cause the mals. No? Just wondering, still very new to the sport, and am learning as much as possible.

-Evo

Zoo Crew

[billvon 2,406]

> Anyone know if a detailed study has been done to isolate mals to their
> main source of orgin.

Very few. I recall one such effort where they were trying to get pictures of mals so they could use them in first jump courses. They had a lot of trouble getting the parachute to malfunction at all, and eventually resorted to tricks like tying the slider up to simulate a streamer.

[chrismgtis 0]

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How about "bad luck" ? Parachutes even when properly packed can fail to open. I think we are trying to find a reason too often.

Yea, possibly true but really that is the case 0.0001% of the time? The way I see it is if you do everything you should be doing and don't leave anything out due to trying to get things done too quickly, laziness or just shear inexperience and negligence, you'll have everything working the way it should.

Problem is too many jumpers would rather just get up there than care about their gear and safety.

Rodriguez Brother #1614, Muff Brother #4033
Jumped: Twin Otter, Cessna 182, CASA, Helicopter, Caravan

[JohnMitchell 14]

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Stick to a larger 7-cell, and you won't have nearly that kind of problem.

Ya know, I had about 1300 jumps in a row jumping a 200 sq ft 7 cell, no cutaways.
In 5200+ jumps, I have about a dozen cutaways, about 4-5 on tandems, one a packing error (mine) and one was a Spinetto.

[JohnMitchell 14]

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Me being the super newbie to this sport I am currious what the most common cause for a malfunction.

Newbie my ass, you old fart.

Here's my opinion on what causes malfunctions.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhC0231FRA8

[jsaxton 0]

HAHAHAHA!

[jakee 1,257]

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Yea, possibly true but really that is the case 0.0001% of the time?

Ya reckon?

I'd say that body position and the random vagaries of opening dynamics probably cause way more mals than bad packing.

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[fasted3 0]

No, he said bad luck accounts for very few mals.

I agree that bad body position is more common than bad packing. In my case it was anyway.

I agree with him that bad luck is not a good reason.

Most cases that are written off to bad luck or shit happens are likely due to a reason that is just not figured out or admitted. IMHO
I don't want to argue percentages though. If anyone wants to blame their problems on bad luck, have at it.

But what do I know?

[erdnarob 1]

Many thanks. I have used SHAZAM applications on my iPhone to take a sample, identify from You Tube and then buy that song (ie. Bad luck SOCIAL DISTORSION). Could we by any chance have some distorsion when exchanging on a topic on this forum ???

Learn from others mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all.

[jakee 1,257]

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No, he said bad luck accounts for very few mals.

No, he was replying to a post that said "Parachutes even when properly packed can fail to open."

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[crustySCSA69 0]

Equipment designed in such a way that your body position can actually induce a malfunction.

This is progress ???

[fasted3 0]

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No, he said bad luck accounts for very few mals.

No, he was replying to a post that said "Parachutes even when properly packed can fail to open."

Did you read his reply? He even quoted the part he wanted to reply to. Notice the 'bad luck' part?
He disagreed with that, and so do I.
You said it could also be caused by bad body position, and I agreed with you too.
Which part of 'I agree' do you have a problem with?
Now if you want to say 'bad luck' is the most common cause of mals, we can argue about that.

But what do I know?

[Andy9o8 0]

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Equipment designed in such a way that your body position can actually induce a malfunction. This is progress ???

You made me realize that I've thought that, too, having started, as you did, back in the round-canopy days. Compared to rounds, ram-airs are - still - very sensitive to less-than-perfect body position on opening. Too bad that sensitivity hasn't been designed-out more in the past 30 years.

[JohnMitchell 14]

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Equipment designed in such a way that your body position can actually induce a malfunction.

This is progress ???

Sure, it's the trade off for having very responsive, fast flying, highly loaded elliptical main canopies. Every flying machine is a collection of compromised choices in the design phase. Our main canopies are no exception.

I see you've been jumping longer than I have, so you remember when line twists were never a malfunction requiring cutaway. I couldn't believe it the time I had to chop my Spinetto due to line twists. It just seemed wrong!

That's why the planform of reserves and base canopies resemble the 7 cell mains we jumped in the 70's and 80's. They were pretty reliable.
I believe it was Bill Booth that said jumpers, given a choice between style and safety, will pick style every time.

[2shay 0]

definitely body position. There are a few things in packing I see people do all the time that is asking for it in my opinion. brake lines being twisted which can cause tension knots. SO many people do that and it is an easy fix. Once you land stow your toggles. That way they do not spin around on your way back to the packing area. The major next one would probably be poor line stows. two things, line stow length should be about three finger widths. I see many with line stows as long as the width of their hands and that screams bag lock to me. Also once you have stowed them neatly Do not just place it into your container and start to close it. Once you are about to start closing take about 20 seconds and make sure that all the stows are seperated and remain that way as you close it. That is also another big bag lock waiting to happen. Sometimes you can get a stray line that goes through another stow which pretty much means bag lock is for sure. Or one stow going through the other it is pretty much the same thing. Last is your pilot chute there are a million ways to do it, but main thing is make sure it is folded neatly that bridal is stowed neatly as well. Many times I see people just wad the bridle into a poorly folded pc a lot. if you fold the pc it badly it could wad up and cause a hard or nearly impossible pull. If the bridle is folded badly it could loop over the pc or knot up and cause you not to be able get it out. Just a few simple things to do to avoid problems. Hope it helps.

don't try your bullshit with me!!!

[DSE 3]

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Has there ever been anyone that has made it past 1000 jumps without a mal?

Jump 1174.
Packed by someone that I probably shouldn't have allowed to pack. My bad.

[fasted3 0]

I thought of something that could be put in with body position, but might deserve it's own catagory, and that is deployment technique.
Pulling your pilot chute and not tossing it quickly and cleanly can mess you up even if your body is flying well. I had a problem from just that - a poor grab with a worse toss resulted in a pc in tow when it got caught in my burble. I was flying great but nothing was happening until I got some wind on my back. People have also run into trouble when they held on to the pc rather than throwing it right away.
I've heard that the PC should be treated like a live cobra and gotten rid of quickly and far. Sounds like good advice to me.

But what do I know?