Safety of Wings Harness/Container System by Sunrise

[captain1976 0]

I’m thinking about getting a wings harness/container system by sunrise. It looks quite comfortable and I like the looks but those rings give me the willies. I see them on other jumpers and can’t help thinking about what would happen if a ring broke, or maybe if the stitching ripped. You'd probably fall out. Can anybody comment on them or know of any issues about this system?

You live more in the few minutes of skydiving than many people live in their lifetime

[AggieDave 6]

Are you talking about the hip rings? Do articulated harnesses made by other manufactures bother you as well? What exactly looks unsafe?

Just curious, after 7 years of holding up my fat-butt, my Wings has held up pretty well. No deformation in the hip rings, nothing falling apart. Actually, I've been pretty hard on my rig over the past 7 years.

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[captain1976 0]

I guess I'm referring to all rigs made that way and you answered the question, I re-started about a year ago after a few years laying off and its kind new to me. Do you find it more comfortable than the other style? I'm a fat ass myself.

You live more in the few minutes of skydiving than many people live in their lifetime

[AggieDave 6]

Yeah, I found the articulated harness more comfortable then a fitted standard harness. Off the top of my head, I can't think of a single instance of one of the major manufactures having a harness failure on a previously undamaged harness.

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[captain1976 0]

Thank for the reassurance, I'm getting one

Blue Skies

You live more in the few minutes of skydiving than many people live in their lifetime

[bigway 4]

Articulated wings containers are very comfortable rigs.

.Karnage Krew Gear Store
.

[LongWayToFall 0]

I love mine with the articulated harness. I asked for the extra wide leg straps on the recommendation of someone else, and it is real comfy under canopy.

[GLIDEANGLE 1]

Articulated Harness Bonus: If (when) leg straps need replacement... they are MUCH easier and cheaper to replace on a rig with articulated harness.

The choices we make have consequences, for us & for others!

[Glitch 0]

Quote

...the extra wide leg straps...

In addition, I'd recommend the following if ordering a HC:
-Full sized 3-ring, not the mini. Can make swapping canopies a bit easier
-Wide chest strap; less issues w/a flopping chest mount alti in freefall (I actually sent my rig back to Sunrise to have the thin chest strap replaced due to this)
-B12 snaps on the leg straps. My fat ass is getting too old and brittle for contorting into my rig.

YMMV

Randomly f'n thingies up since before I was born...

[councilman24 36]

What they said.

Except there have been elongated rings. See link.
http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=21647;search_string=elongated%20rings;#21647

I THINK there were elongated rings on some Wings harnesses early on also. A couple of my customer had them. Wings took care of them.

What this does eliminate are the harness designs that weave around and actually won't come apart if the main lift web/leg strap junction comes apart. More a selling point than a necessity.

I've never liked the rigs that took bent three ring rings and used them. But I have a rig with hip rings and like it alot. Don't much like chest rings. There was some issue mentioned a couple of weeks ago about them letting the harness shift too much. But first time I've heard real complaints about them.

Safe? Yep. Comfortable? Yep. Expensive? Yep. Worth it? Hip at leat yep.

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

[freeatlast 0]

Quote

Safe? Yep. Comfortable? Yep. Expensive? Yep. Worth it? Hip at leat yep.

And another vote from me

[airtwardo 6]

Quote

Quote

...the extra wide leg straps...

In addition, I'd recommend the following if ordering a HC:
-Full sized 3-ring, not the mini. Can make swapping canopies a bit easier
-Wide chest strap; less issues w/a flopping chest mount alti in freefall (I actually sent my rig back to Sunrise to have the thin chest strap replaced due to this)
-B12 snaps on the leg straps. My fat ass is getting too old and brittle for contorting into my rig.

YMMV

You just described my Quasar ll

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

[d123 1]

It's confortable. True.
The risers are closer to your head and I get riser slaps on camera jumps more easy compared with Javelin (for instance). I have to put my head down and I don't like that.
The Free-Fly pilot chute is another thing that bothers me. It has 2 inch of line between the apex and the handle. I wish that the handle was built on top of the PC apex.
Don't go for the cordura BOC. I don't like it anymore. I think spandex is better.

Remember, this is my post so all these are my oppinions.

Lock, Dock and Two Smoking Barrelrolls!

[RiggerLee 61]

It's been a long time sence I've seen a bent rings. They never actually failed and with the new hardware used there I think that problem is gone.

In theory I think that hardware is the weakest point in the system. But you don't see main rings breaking and they've been in use for what? 35 years? under the exact same loading.

In theory a continues harness is stronger but the truth is that the hip junction gets torked on and point loads at the front corner above the lower junction. This tends to fail the lower half of the junction. You do see damage there. Broken structural stitches. That's bad. I have seen the whole lower half fail. No he didn't die. The reason, the only reason, he didn't die is that it was a Javelin with a wraparound harness. The webbing wraps around the MLW and has a box of harness stitching with harness cord providing redundency in the system. It just cinched down around his leg and he blessed sunpath for the bruses later. There are other harnesses that just "plug in" between the layers of the MLW. It's a strong design but you do see the same damage and there is no redundency in the design. I have not seen a cattistophic failure of a hip like that but I've heard rumors...late 80's early 90's? maybe in Europe? Maybe an older rigger can recall.

I'm not trying to scare you and I'm not trying to shit on any of the manufactores. But what you're asking is a good question. It's not a triveal question. People today are fat. And the sport is getting more demanding. Freeflying was not around when a lot of these containers and reserves were tested. Kinetic energy goes up with the square of the velocity. 180 mph is more then twice 120 mph. a lot of people are blatantly over loading and worse over speeding their reserves and harnesses. They act like it's no big deal and that's bullshit. There are failures. There is damage. I've seen it. And even if it doesn't blow up it could turn a small survivable problem into an unsurvivable one. Had this conversation with Tamera Corn following one of her old freefly lectures at Quincy. How first we'd see failures in the reserves, happened, and eventualy in the harnesses, remember the Russion rig and didn't a racer blow a chest junction?

Enough of a soap box for today. Here's the short answer. get a multi ring harness that FITS you. I recamend chest rings as well for the simple reason that it makes resizing the rig easier if you ever wont to sell it or it gets damaged. And if your a big boy get something big. And don't try to shove ten pounds of silicone greased shit into a five pound deployment bag. You'll damage the rig. you'll hate packing it and your rigger and your packer will hate you.

Lee

Lee
[email protected]
www.velocitysportswear.com

[Joellercoaster 6]

Quote

and your packer will hate you.

Your packer already hates you.

--
"I'll tell you how all skydivers are judged, . They are judged by the laws of physics." - kkeenan

"You jump out, pull the string and either live or die. What's there to be good at?

[RiggerLee 61]

First, speaking personaly I am my own packer.
Second, get it right. The phrase is Your Packer Secretly Hates You.
Lastly, just for the record, we Print that T-Shirt.

Lee

Lee
[email protected]
www.velocitysportswear.com

[riggerrob 558]

I have seen a few bent rings, but no broken rings.

The first batch of bent rings were 3-Ring harness rings (part number Rw-1-82). A few RW-1 rings snuck out of the factory in 1982 an d1983 before they were properly heat treated. Some were replaced with screw-in RW-5 rings, but all those old rigs should be worn-out and retired by now.

The next batch of soft rings were installed on the first Flexons, circa 1991. The soft rings were easily identifiable because they were the only shiny, stainless steel RW-0 sized hip rings installed on Rigging Innovations harnesses. RW-0 rings are the same diameter as RW-1, ut lack the slot. "Soft" is relative because you needed to pack skinny, Spectra lines so loosely that they dumped. The resulting hard opening usually shredded the canopy and tweeked your neck so badly that you did not want to jump for a few weeks!

The third batch of weak rings were installed on a few Wings containers. Again they were easily identifiable because they were highly-polished stainless steel. Again, a few hip rings bent on Wings harnesses, but none broke.

Hip rings often increase harness strength.
When Al MacDonald pull-tested a Sidewinder harness with RI-1 Rings (same size as RW-0 and RW-1, but incorporating a friction adapter) he found that harnesses were 15 percent stronger because they no longer concentrated the load at the top of the stitch pattern holding the upper leg strap to the main lift web. Instead, the hip ring allowed the leg straps to rotate until the load was directly aligned with most of the threads ... the way the webbing was originally designed to carry the load.

Another good feature of ringed harnesses is that - most of the time - webbing is WRAPPED around rings, spreading the load more evenly ... similar to hip joints on Javelins and chest straps on Vector 3. Wrap-around joints are also more tolerant of sloppy stitching or unstable openings.

[LongWayToFall 0]

These are the same options I have on mine, minus the B-12s. The rig is sweet, fits great. The hip rings make it very comfy in the air. When you specify a canopy, they make the container a smidge on the loose side, which was great for me when I started packing but I have since shortened my closing loop as I get better, you might ask them to size it on the tight side for your canopy. If I was great at packing and let my grommets separate a bit (ie not overlapped) I bet I could fit a full size larger canopy in my rig. YMMV

[captain1976 0]

Thanks for the info/link. Before I ask a question I usually search the forums but sometimes there is so much to go through, its better to start a new post.

You live more in the few minutes of skydiving than many people live in their lifetime

[koppel 3]

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I recamend chest rings as well for the simple reason that it makes resizing the rig easier if you ever wont to sell it or it gets damaged

overall I agreed with most of what you said Lee. I must say however that i think your advice here is possibly ill-thought out.

When we as riggers talk to people about what they are going to buy and what they are going to jump the focus should be on what is right for them and what is safest.

Without going deeply into the debate of whether Chest rings are a good idea or not (I personally do not like them for the excessive horizontal movement they allow in rig) we should not advise people to get or not get a feature or a container based on what they "might possibly" decide to do with it in the future.

It is akin to when I hear people being advised that its ok to get that 'smaller' rig with that 'smaller' reserve and main 'as long as they are careful to start with'. It is attitudes like this that get people hurt and killed.

Not a personal attack lee just sharing my thoughts. :)

I like my canopy...


...it lets me down.

[RiggerLee 61]

I'm interested in what you mean be excessive horizontal movement? For the record my rig does not have chestrings. I've borrowed rigs from other people over the years and I've jumped rigs to test them for people. I've jumped rigs that fit me and ones that didn't even come close. Honestly I don't even notice the rings. I don't think they make it more comferterble. I think it's all about the geometry and whether or not it fits. God it can be tortureous when they don't fit.
Structeraly although there seems to be more failure points the loading on the junctions is much better. And I wouldn't discount the value of being able to resize or repair the harness easily. People trade out gear. I'd rather see someone buy a big rig now and trade to a small rig in a few years then tosee them pushed into that container that they will one day want even though it's too small for the canopies they need now. That's why I encurage them to buy used on their first rig. And if they get eather a continues or multi ring harness it can be resized if the MLW does not fit them.
I guess it's two ways to view the same problem.

Lee

Lee
[email protected]
www.velocitysportswear.com