historical reliability of round reserves?

[pchapman 261]

The topic of round canopy reliability came up in another thread ("Most reliable main..."), as it has very occasionally on this site.

How common was it to get minor mals or canopy damage to round reserves in the old days?

Did you ever hear about anyone having to repair or replace their reserve after use?

I'm thinking of a couple different eras. To generalize, there was
a) the age of unreefed military-strength rounds,
and
b) the age of lightweight, diaper deployed rounds (Phantom 24 etc).

Things like temporary partial inversions can happen which end up fine for the jumper but could cause burns on the canopy. And I've always wondered about how well light weight round reserves fared, in high speed openings.

Poynter's has some info but is vague about the configuration of the round canopies involved.

I'd think diapers would improve openings a lot as the skirt would stay symmetrical until line stretch, although it could still get out of whack once the diaper released. But diapers came in I suppose around the time reserves started getting lighter - although I don't know the exact chronology off hand.

[RiggerLee 61]

Diapers are a huge improvement in the stageing of the opening. There are some other factors that seem to play into the malfunction rate. The "shorter" a canopy is the easier it seems to be for it to become partialy or even fully inverted. The old tri conicals as an example were known to fully invert. The burns can be more then just a nucence. The more shape it has the more of a problem it can be. A nice tall conical on the other hand is harder to turn inside out. The apex is just too high up there to be pulled all the way through before it really starts to fill.

The phantoms were notorious for blowing up. Remember the tighter diaper and kevlar band upgrade? They didn't do that just for fun.
Did you hear about the one that blew up at the airshow? And that one had all the mods. In fairness he was going fast.

People seem to froget about all these things. How many Super Ravens broak lines? How many M-series pulled attachment points? How many Tempos broake lines? And yet people incest on free flying with the tinest rig and reserve they can find.


Lee

Lee
[email protected]
www.velocitysportswear.com

[fcajump 153]

I understand that the anti-inversion netting has had a huge impact on preventing problems with mil rigs, but most jumpers aren't willing to accept the added bulk.

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The phantoms were notorious for blowing up. Remember the tighter diaper and kevlar band upgrade? They didn't do that just for fun.
Did you hear about the one that blew up at the airshow? And that one had all the mods. In fairness he was going fast.

If you have more on this, I would really like to read up on it... I'm aware of the SB's from National, but not too much on what lead to them, and many of my customers are pilots.

JW

Always remember that some clouds are harder than others...

[jimjumper 25]

I used to jump a 26" Strong Lopo reserve. I had 3 rides on it and was happy with it. After I loaned the rig to a novice she cutaway and had a lineover malfunction. It burned big holes in it and was unrepairable. She landed it but screwed up her back. I replaced it with a 28" Phantom. It was soon recalled to have the diaper changed. After that there were at least 2 incidents of the lower lateral band breaking, 1 at Davis CA, and one at California City that I personally witnessed. In the one I witnessed, it was a terminal opening and the canopy was alternately collapsing and inflating and the jumper got lucky and landed at close to full inflation. The canopy I had was then recalled for a $100 kevlar modification to the lower lateral band. I then went overseas and read about the acid mesh problem with the drive vents in Skydiving. Sure enough, my canopy was on the recall list! I retired it and finally bought a square reserve! I still have the canopy and the container and used them during my rigger training.

[RiggerLee 61]

Direct bag deployments from an airplane are a totaly diffrent animal then a free fall deployment. From a plane you fall verticaly downwards across the airstream, some back angle depending on speed. The lines on a dirrect bag are streatched out across the airstream. If you just dirrect bag the canopy it dumps out of the bag basically perpendicular to the wind relative to you. It will invert all the time. You might get lucky on ocasion and get a clean opening, any thing is posable. That's why you have to have a strong velcro assist or tie at the apex. Once the bag opens you have another 17 ft of canopy that you have to streatch out tight. It should look like a big ark between you and the plane. Once it streaches out tight and the assist breaks the whole thing swings back in line with the wind and begens to open. With the canopy fully extended like that staging is pretty good and reliability is pretty high. You are still sideways to the airstream and you can still get partial inversions and burns. After they added the net malfunctions just about went to 0. It totaly cured the iinversion problem. It stops the skirt from blowing through the lines. It's huge. Lots of bulk.

Free fall is all about getting to line streach with the canopy extended and the skirt even hence the diaper.

The Phantom thing was a bit before my time. only ever saw one canopy that still needed the mods. I learned about it from Stanford and Greg Gerrondale of OK. Greg seemed to be in on the push for the mods and I'd reffrence you to him for the detales. There are other old timers here that might also have more dirrect knowlage of the incedents that led to the mods.

I heard about the airshow from a guy in the FAA. Short version of the story. Guy took the wings off a plane. Think lawn dart with the engion puhing it. He was fast. He got out and dumped but the thing blew up. Just blew to shit. PC seperated from the bridal above the knot. The way the canopy failed was interesting. Ashudo diaper. Remember all the weight of the diaper and lines hangs on one radial tape. That tape goes to a line at the apex. That line goes over the top to the opposit radial tape and seam. The bridal acts like a pully and the weight of the diaper pulled the top seam/radial tape, which is the center one of the packjob out of the center of the diaper. Try it some time when your unpackng one. Have a guy hold the diaper take a good grip on that center seam and give it a good pull. It caught air and inflated probably inverted and beguin to pull out the gore on ether side. It also tore the line off the canopy. Remember the early Phantoms only had that little peace of type 3 tape zigzaged ontop of the lower lateral band. The line broke that and pealed off. then the next two did the same. Al the way around the canopy till it got to the last line and that one broke at the finger trap at the link. Guy had a bad fucking day. Let me repeat he was going fast. Bland was all hot to do an investigtion but the FAA didn't want to get involved. He had a radar track with a ground speed almost to impact and he had an angle of impact from the hole the plane made so he figured he could caculate the air speed. It was fast but he figured that with the pilots weight that it was within the shock loading that the canopy had been tested to. He felt that it through doubt on the testing program of the canopy and he wanted to make them retest it in front of him. Not gona happen. The FAA was not going to pay him to go hang out and fuck with these poor guys when it was obveously an extream senario. Nothing ever came of it. But it shows the importance of good V tapes or equivalent. It also shows the importance of acounting for the inertia of the lines and diaper. I've had failures of radial seam tapes on high speed deployments. That's why I favore a heavier tape on that seam and a loop to transfer the load to that tape. Think quarter bag. Or at least a finger traped loop in the apex line to keep it from shifting.

This is all moot. If you're still repcking old Phantoms I suggest you read he statement in the latest manual. It's up to you but on your head be it. I wouldn't want to explane my self in court. Tell your pilot that national has sold him out and he should buy a new strong because they wont let you pack his old PEP any more. And all the aero stars that are still airworthy have the new attachment points so that's nolonger relevent. And besides there's nothing wrong with it just don't try to deploy it at 300 miles an hour.

Lee

Lee
[email protected]
www.velocitysportswear.com

[RiggerLee 61]

Lower lateral band? I thought it was to the center band and the apex.

Lee

Lee
[email protected]
www.velocitysportswear.com

[fcajump 153]

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The bridal acts like a pully and the weight of the diaper pulled the top seam/radial tape, which is the center one of the packjob out of the center of the diaper.

I assume this is why FFE put the cats-eyes in the crown lines to keep them centered...

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If you're still repacking old Phantoms I suggest you read he statement in the latest manual.

I assume you're refering to their comments on 20 year age limit...
If so, not a problem here... I've long gone that route for several reasons, not the least of which is what I call the "widow and jury" argument.

But understanding the lessons once learned that are now simply rattling around in aging rigger's heads is always a good thing... Got a rig in that hasn't been repacked since the factory in 1997 and is subject to an SB (never performed)... Total lock on the table. Damn good thing it wasn't needed.

It'll be back in service, but only after I'm 100% that its right.

Jw

Always remember that some clouds are harder than others...

[riggerrob 558]

Around 1980, Ted Strong published a bunch of statistics proving that his diapered rounds were far more reliable than earlier, non-diapered rounds. Ted quoted a malfunction rate of 5 percent on un-diapered rounds.

Fast forward to 1998 and Butler introduced his sliderized HX series of round canopies. Butler used negative advertising to sell his new line of canopies. The problem with Butler's negative advertising is that he was far too close to the truth for comfort. Skydiving riggers had know for many years (after a few fatalities) than several light-weight, round reserves (e.g. Phantoms) were built too light to survive anything other than perfect openings near the top edge of their placarded envelopes. Butler published a bunch of video of round reserves blowing up near the edges of their placarded envelopes.
Butler then went on to publish video of his sliderized rounds opening gracefully at much faster airspeeds and much heavier weights.

From personal experience, I made about 70 jumps on round mains and suffered three malfunctions. The first malfunction was problem caused by the student - who packed a Cross-Bow without understanding the finer points of folding stabilizers.
My second malfunction was on a Canadian Army Military Freefall rig that suffered a totatl inversion on opening. It landed me softly beside the peas, but had so many dozen holes that it was scrapped.

My third malfunction - on a round main - was an un-netted T-10 that I borrowed from the German Army. It suffered a partial inversion during (static-line) opening. Luckily it straightened itself out - for a soft landing - but suffered so many holes and burns that it was scrap.

Rob Warner
FAA Master Rigger
Canadian Army Basic (Red) Paratrooper Wings
German Army (Bronze) Paratrooper Wings

[tbrown 26]

A girl blew up her Security LoPo at the 1978 Nationals Boogie in richmond. She'd had a hard pull on her p/c, so pulled silver and the reserve blew. Fortunately, she had NOT cutaway (think hard about that...) and was finally able to extract her p/c just in time. Her Strato Star main opened about 100 ft off the deck. She was a weeping wreck, but alive. Her reserve looked like someone had driven a lawnmower over it.

Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

[Master_Yoda 0]

From 1997 to 1990 at Fort Bragg I saw MANY MANY round reserve rides. I had two of them myself. But never saw one explode.
When I got out of the Army and went to Perris to jump, they wouldn't let me. They said things like "Man, that thing will explode!" & "You're gonna die!!"

BULLSHIT!

For the record I had a 24' Lopo Light.

That's when I dropped out of the sport.

[ripcord4 0]

In my round jumping days I had three reserve rides: the first was indeed necessary - the main never came out of the sleeve...only half the lines unstowed from the rubberbands. The second was a precaution for a Mae West. I don't think it was needed but that was club policy. The third was intentional - my Pioneer Tri-Conical was due for a repack so I strapped a tertiary reserve on the front of my X-Bow piggyback and dumped the Tri-Con from the backpack at terminal just for the experience - it hurt! I have seen several other round reserve rides over the years and NEVER saw a problem.

[Master_Yoda 0]

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From 1997 to 1990

I'm always doing that shit. "From 1987 to 1990"

[Phil1111 911]

About 1973 i cut away from a PC using 11/2 shots. I activated the 24' T-10 reserve immediately and had the pilot chute go through one of the reserve mods(no mesh). The pilot chute hung up in the reserve mod and six panels were severely damaged in two gores.

Because the apex was partially inverted due to the hung up pilot chute the canopy was actually descending slower than normal and I got a stand-up landing out of the canopy. The reserve was a write off. The container was a security pig with a PC in a sleeve which weighed about 45lbs total.

Five other rides on round reserves were without event.