SkyHook paid for itself

[SansSuit 1]

I loaned my rig to a friend for a few jumps. He had a canopy situation that required a cutaway. As I'm racing down the road to get under where the main is landing, I can see that the freebag is still attatched to the risers. The main landed in a the middle of a big cornfield. The jumper took one for the canopy and landed in the corn with it. Good thing, too. The canopy went directly in between rows to the ground. I know that we never would have found a separate freebag/pilot chute. The SkyHook paid for itself.

Thank you Mr. Booth and sorry you lost the replacement parts sale (OK, not really).

Peace,
-Jeff.

Peace,
-Dawson.
http://www.SansSuit.com
The Society for the Advancement of Naked Skydiving

[upndownshop 0]

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Thank you Mr. Booth and sorry you lost the replacement parts sale (OK, not really).

Peace,
-Jeff.

I remember chatting with Bill when Sun Path sent me to spend a week at their shop. He commented on that exact problem with the latest mods (at that time) to the hook. The darn bag stays attached, thus losing the parts sale. But I believe in the skyhook so its worth it.

[hackish 8]

A couple of weeks ago we spent an afternoon looking around to recover my free bag. When I get a rig I want a skyhook just for the fact it is more likely to attach my ass to an open reserve faster. The fact that the freebag stays attached is a great side-effect.

-Michael

[mr2mk1g 10]

Mr. Booth comments on this very "issue" during one of his skydive radio interviews. From memory, he jokingly laments the fact he designed and released a piece of safety equipment in full knowledge it was actually going to cost him money in the long run.

[billbooth 10]

Very true...the first time the Skyhook saves your freebag/pilot chute, it pays for itself. Better yet...everytime thereafter, it pays for a very nice dinner with your significant other. Such a deal... Once again, I shot myself in the foot.

[michalm21 0]

If I remember correctly, he said something about shooting himself in a foot jokingly of course

[jerry81 10]

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Very true...the first time the Skyhook saves your freebag/pilot chute, it pays for itself. Better yet...everytime thereafter, it pays for a very nice dinner with your significant other. Such a deal... Once again, I shot myself in the foot.

Not only that...coming from a Vector student/Sigma dropzone, I can say it's a very welcome side-effect of the Skyhook that you only need to find the big main canopy to have one of your "workrigs" back in circulation in a matter of hours/next day instead of searching for a small freebag or having to wait for spare parts to arrive (we keep extra handles, but not many freebags around).

[980 0]

When retrieving a fellow jumper's main from a 60ft tree, I found the freebag still attached by the skyhook and this 'welcome side effect' made us both very happy.

However, later this season another friend had a cutaway, only he did not have a skyhook.
His canopy and his freebag ended up in an adjacent forest of 60ft trees.
We could not find them for a day and a half and finally we got really lucky, as flying over the forest in a C182, we spotted the freebag in the trees.
Knowing where he cut away and now having a second point on the wind-drift line (the freebag), we looked further down that wind-drift line and on the second pass spotted his (mostly royal blue) canopy in the trees.
There is no way we would have found the canopy if we didn't know where to look and finding the freebag led directly to finding the canopy.
It gets even better though, as my friend dropped his soft reserve handle. He walked back up the wind drfit line, starting from the main, went past the freebag and just across the road on that line he found his soft reserve handle.

Maybe if he had a skyhook and the canopy ended up where it did, we would've spotted the white freebag anyway, maybe we would not have.

My point is that you only really need to find one object from the cutaway and know the point of the cutaway to establish the wind drift line, which will help you find the other items lost in the cutaway.

With the skyhook you have one less item to find, so that might mean in some cases some very unlucky person will lose their main (and it's dbag, bridle, PC and risers), and their skyhook freebag (and PC) because they could not find that one location.

In that case Mr Booth might make up some of his skyhook induced losses by selling a set of risers, a main Dbag+bridle+PC and a skyhook reserve freebag+PC ...

[SansSuit 1]

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Very true...the first time the Skyhook saves your freebag/pilot chute, it pays for itself. Better yet...everytime thereafter, it pays for a very nice dinner with your significant other. Such a deal... Once again, I shot myself in the foot.

Tell you what. The next time your foot injury inducing invention saves me a freebag/pilot chute, I will buy you and your significant other a fairly nice dinner.

Again, my thanks.

Peace,
-Jeff.

(And I think the magnetic riser covers are way cool, too.)

Peace,
-Dawson.
http://www.SansSuit.com
The Society for the Advancement of Naked Skydiving

[JeepDiver 0]

When I cutaway my freebag was not attached to my main.

[billbooth 10]

Thanks Jeff. I'll take you up on that...and you can join us...but only if you put on some clothes.

Bill