All hail gear checks

[livendive 8]

One of our local jumpers was inspecting his rig Saturday morning before jumping and found this. The ripcord was just installed last weekend. Our suspicion is that he caught the flap on a bench while sitting on the floor, but a line snag is possible too (except nobody noticed any burns).

Yes, looking at it gave me the jitters.

Blues,
Dave

"I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!"
(drink Mountain Dew)

[councilman24 36]

How the hell did that happen!? Not a bent pin but a pin bent in two directions. Looks like it got bent up and someone bent it back down.

I'm old for my age.
Terry Urban
D-8631
FAA DPRE

[dgw 8]

I agree. That pin appears to have two permanent bends in it, and appears to have sustained two/three bending events. The 'cable' end where the fingers are appears to have been bent up. The free end appears to have been bent up, and then back down. I would really like to see some his-res close ups of the pin, to see if there are any witness marks that might shed some light on the mechanism of the bendings.

[livendive 8]

Quote

How the hell did that happen!? Not a bent pin but a pin bent in two directions. Looks like it got bent up and someone bent it back down.

Nobody is particularly sure how it happened. The best guess seemed to be that he caught the flap on a bench while sliding down to sit on the floor, after which I suppose he could have leaned back against the bench and bent it back. Or it could have happened somehow during transport home last weekend or back to the DZ on Saturday morning, but he doesn't remember trying to cram it into anything.

As for the request for a higher res picture, sorry, all I had on me was my phone.

Blues,
Dave

"I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!"
(drink Mountain Dew)

[councilman24 36]

Try to make sure nobody bent it back thinking it was good to go.

I'm old for my age.
Terry Urban
D-8631
FAA DPRE

[Bill_K 0]

Wow, great reminder to do a good pin check and do them often... Gave me a chill seeing it. Thx for posting that.

[MakeItHappen 15]

Quote

One of our local jumpers was inspecting his rig Saturday morning before jumping and found this. The ripcord was just installed last weekend. Our suspicion is that he caught the flap on a bench while sitting on the floor, but a line snag is possible too (except nobody noticed any burns).

Yes, looking at it gave me the jitters.

Blues,
Dave

Did he do any Cessna jumps recently? or just jam-ups on the ground on a Cessna?
I've seen bent pins like that from hitting the rig on the door/wing of a Cessna from the 'step' position.

BTW, gear checks - check the reserve pin before each jump. I know a lot of folks don't do that -but they should.

.

.
Make It Happen
Parachute History
DiveMaker

[BIGUN 1,050]

Converted to 400DPI jpg from 200 DPI .bmp and made a couple of sharpen passes, but that's about as good as it gets without first-hand pic.

Nobody has time to listen; because they're desperately chasing the need of being heard.

[in2jumping 0]

Curious too see how much pull force this added. Someone going to do a pull test on it?

[davelepka 4]

All hail gear checks, sure.

I vote we all hail being mindful of our gear at all times, and treat it like a lifesaving device, not a portable backrest.

[Broke 0]

No one ever died because he did a gear check

Divot your source for all things Hillbilly.
Anvil Brother 84
SCR 14192

[Bertt 0]

"The ripcord was just installed...". Was the ripcord from the manufacturer, TSO'd, original equipment, etc., or was it a substitute of some sort? At any rate, good catch.

You don't have to outrun the bear.

[DrewEckhardt 0]

Quote

No one ever died because he did a gear check

Although I've had my main flap open in freefall because some muppet couldn't get it stowed correctly after doing a gear check. If I had less closing loop tension I would have had a premature deployment (I've packed rigs owned by whimps and girls who preferred less tension over learning the techniques that would let them close a tight container with less strength). If that happened during a vertical freefly move at 160 MPH there could have been a fatality.

I check everything on the ground and feel back there before exit to make sure the container is still closed.

[livendive 8]

Quote

Quote

No one ever died because he did a gear check

Although I've had my main flap open in freefall because some muppet couldn't get it stowed correctly after doing a gear check. If I had less closing loop tension I would have had a premature deployment (I've packed rigs owned by whimps and girls who preferred less tension over learning the techniques that would let them close a tight container with less strength). If that happened during a vertical freefly move at 160 MPH there could have been a fatality.

I check everything on the ground and feel back there before exit to make sure the container is still closed.

I'm with you on that point. Once I've got the rig on, I don't want anyone touching it except on my request, and I'll only ask people I know and trust.

Blues,
Dave

"I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!"
(drink Mountain Dew)

[erdnarob 1]

Packing a reserve with too much force on the closing loop can sometimes bend the pin. I have seen a case. The closing loop cord (Cypres) is rated at 180 kilograms or 397 lbs and it is doubled (fingertrap) which makes a maximum tensile strength of almost 800 lbs. When using a positive leverage device and according my calculations (torque) the pull force at the end of a normal packing is about 200 lbs for a pull force to have the pin slipping tested between 14 and 18 lbs. That's why one have to use a positive leverage device with caution since it can generate a lot of force. Also, a weakness in the pin shoulder (too much grinding of the cable after swaging) can lead to a bend of the pin combined with too much force on the closing loop.
What happened to me one time is that I found my reserve pin bent at almost 45 degrees on the ground just before a jump. And suddenly I remembered that the precedent weekend I had felt a resistance when leaving the aircraft step (Cessna 180). I realized that resistance came from my reseve pin being caught by the front edge of the Cessna door. The front edge of the door had likely been under my Velcro flap and caught the pin. The pin bent when I left the airplane and probably went sideway to allow me to go. I was lucky enough that my closing loop did not break. The following jump was without any problem and there were no trace of friction just the stiffener of the second last flap was cracked inside the cordura. I hope this will help your friend to investigate what has happened. Have a rigger looking at this case. And remember (this is what I do now) have a reserve pin check before each jump). Cheers.

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

[Unstable 8]

A lot of good points there. Yes, I agree that it looks like two distict pulling/bending events, HOWEVER notice how the bend is in perfect harmony with the grommet size - - - My first guess is that this looks like a case of excessive force on the reserve closing loop.

I think they should remove the defective pin, replace it with perhaps an old ripcord, and do a pull-force test.

=========Shaun ==========

[pchapman 261]

Looks like the rig is an old Vector I with velcro only and no tuck tabs for the reserve cover flap??

Pin checks sure are even more important with older gear!

The pin looks bent in strange ways. But there might be only 2 bends. Hard to tell in the cellphone shot, but part of the apparent bend is just from the zigzag that exists where the free end of the cable is ground off. So it could be one big bend up (from hitting a bench sitting down) and then another bend of the tip down (maybe from then leaning back and partially 'flattening' everything out again). Whatever the details, it sure is bent....

[livendive 8]

Quote

A lot of good points there. Yes, I agree that it looks like two distict pulling/bending events, HOWEVER notice how the bend is in perfect harmony with the grommet size - - - My first guess is that this looks like a case of excessive force on the reserve closing loop.

I think they should remove the defective pin, replace it with perhaps an old ripcord, and do a pull-force test.

I considered that possibility briefly, but the bent portion is somewhat bigger than the grommet. Here's a higher resolution picture.

Blues,
Dave

"I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!"
(drink Mountain Dew)

[skittles_of_SDC 0]

So true. Once on gear check while going through AFP, meaning we weren't packing for ourselves yet, I caught the RSL routed through the large bottom ring. Caught it, fixed it, jumped it. Everything went fine. One of the instructors told me if I hadn't caught it I could have had a 3 ring malfunction in the air.

[dgw 8]

It appears to me that there are three distinct bends in the pin, visible in the high-res image. I append a .jpeg with them marked.

Also, we don't use reserve seals in the UK/Ireland, so this may be a bone question. However, is there any significance to be drawn from the condition of the seal thread? It appears to have failed/separated at one end.

[tsalnukt 1]

I'm pretty sure that the first "bend" on the right is normal for that type of pin. I'm looking at several right now and they all have that bend there.

[billeisele 122]

D-

wondering if this could have been caused by picking up the rig by the reserve flap, putting pressure on the pin against the grommet

or similar, snagging the reserve flap on the door

good catch

Give one city to the thugs so they can all live together. I vote for Chicago where they have strict gun laws.

[dgw 8]

Fair enough. I've only got my own pin to compare to the incident pin. Mine is dead straight

[Chubba 0]

Quote

I'm with you on that point. Once I've got the rig on, I don't want anyone touching it except on my request, and I'll only ask people I know and trust.

I trust everyone basically, pretty much the same 10 people at our dropzone every week.

Gear check on the ground by me, gear check by prior to boarding, gear check from someone in the Cessna prior to door.

I guess I would feel unsafe asking a random

[JerryBaumchen 1,047]

Hi dgw,

There are numerous types of pins. The most common in the skydiving world are terminal pins ( only a hole for the cable to go into and not out of also ) and an intermediate pin ( two holes, one for the cable to go into and one for it to come out of and to go on towards additional pins if necessary ).

The photo appears to be an intermediate pin but with no cable coming out of it. The most comon pin in the skydiving industry.

When building a ripcord using a terminal pin it is common to push the cable into the pin as far as it will go and then swage it.

When building a single-pin ripcord using a terminal pin there are two methods; one is to push the cable in until some of it comes out the other side, swage it and then grind it smooth; the other is to just push enough cable in so that it 'almost' comes out the other side and then swage it ( this saves the grinding operation ).

Your straight pin is quite possibly a terminal pin.

Hope that this helps,

JerryBaumchen