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TheSecret

Crossbrace canopies and violent spinning malfunctions

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I have read that during a malfunction a highly loaded crossbrace canopy go in to a violent spin. Fast enough even that makes reaching handles impossible. Are there any options for dealing with this particular event? Perhaps someone flying a high performance canopy does not have an AAD or does not have it on, what are their options for cutting away from a violently spinning canopy? Can the handles be placed in a different location to aid in a difficult cut away?

I was just wondering what options these pilots have if they find themselves in a difficult and scary situation.
Life is good

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> I have read that during a malfunction a highly loaded crossbrace
>canopy go in to a violent spin. Fast enough even that makes reaching
>handles impossible.

This is unique to small ellipticals, not just crossbraced canopies. It most often applies to crossbraced canopies because they tend to be the most heavily loaded canopies at a DZ.

>Are there any options for dealing with this particular event?

This was discussed a lot after Chris Martin went in. Short answer is that there's no one 'silver bullet' to solve the problem. AAD's won't generally help; canopies that are small enough to do that will often require a swoop AAD, which is specifically designed to NOT fire after the canopy is open.

A few options:

Loop type cutaway handles may be easier to operate under those scenarios, since you only have to get one finger/thumb to the bottom of the loop instead of having to wrap your hand around a soft handle.

A new sort of AAD that will cut the risers away if it senses more than, say, 10G's for 10 seconds or more.

Yes, all the above have drawbacks as well.

There are always the boring solutions, like being very careful packing, not downsizing to a canopy that can spin up that fast etc etc.

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This is unique to small ellipticals, not just crossbraced canopies. It most often applies to crossbraced canopies because they tend to be the most heavily loaded canopies at a DZ.



Its not just small ellipticals. Small square canopies can do it as well as heavily loaded large canopies.

I had a Heatwave 170 loaded 1.7:1 that spun up HARD. Same with the XF2 149 loaded at 1.9. Sure it wasn't as "good" as a Velo 111 loaded in the neighborhood of 2.6:1, but its not just unique to "small ellipticals."

The 170 and the 149 were just a little easier to try to fix, but they both threw me to my back and sent me on a ride. Resulted in a chop on the XF2 and I should have chopped it on the Heatwave.
--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

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>Small square canopies can do it as well as heavily loaded large canopies.

Not in my experience. A friend of mine had a Sabre 1 97 I jumped for a while; it was far less likely to spin up than even modern ellipticals (Nitro 108, Crossfire 109, Katana 107 etc.) Although I'm sure there are exceptions.

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Squares are definitely less likely to spin up than ellipticals for sure (the whole reason I stopped jumping ellipticals actually.) But I had a friend pack me a mal a couple of months back where my Triathlon 99 spun up every bit as violently as any elliptical spinner I've ever had. It impressed me because I didn't think a 7-cell square would do that!

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While not having the experience of the others that have answered, I would say that the key is knowing what you are jumping. I have enough openings on my canopy to say as soon as things start to go wrong, chop it. I trust my reserve and on the type of canopy I jump I am not prepared to fight anything for too long.
Line twists I will give about 5 seconds to see positive results, otherwise I chop. Spinning on my back, I chop.
Can a violent malfunction be instantly so fast ( withing a few seconds) that you have problems reaching the handles?

BTW Jumping a Xaos 21 is not considered normal.
Dave

Fallschirmsport Marl

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>Can a violent malfunction be instantly so fast ( withing a few seconds)
>that you have problems reaching the handles?

Yes; we've seen one fatality due to it already. Several people have reported having trouble getting to their handles under high loadings. One guy reported having his harness so distorted by the spin that he could not even find his reserve handle. (Fortunately he could get to his cutaway handle and he had an RSL.) Had he not been able to find his cutaway handle, that would have been worse.

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Not in my experience. A friend of mine had a Sabre 1 97 I jumped for a while; it was far less likely to spin up than even modern ellipticals (Nitro 108, Crossfire 109, Katana 107 etc.) Although I'm sure there are exceptions.



I've seen them do it, but I'll never know what its like to jump a Sabre2 97 loaded at 1.4 (unless I loose both of my legs and another 80lbs), so my comment in that regard is from other people's experiences. In my experience, though, a "large" canopy that is loaded up will spin and be violent. It doesn't go from linetwists to "holy F***" quite as fast as a small highly loaded canopy in my experience, though.
--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

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I had a brake release on a XAOS 27 92 last summer, to say it was violently spinning is a understatement. The handles were high although I located them. After cutaway (no RSL), I was spinning so fast I had trouble regaining control. Okay I had alot of trouble gaining control, firing reserve in a not favorable position. Hard to learn from it though I had never been spinning that fast, and after cutaway it seemed to get faster, similar to a sling shot.

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I had a brake release on a XAOS 27 92 last summer, to say it was violently spinning is a understatement. The handles were high although I located them***


I had this same experience with my FX a couple years ago except when I chopped I was expecting to go ass over teakettle but wasnt tumbling at all, the 2 seconds from chop to reserve pull were me making completely sure I wasnt tumbling, but I was only under the spinner for 2 seconds prior to chopping though, any longer and I would have been lucky to find which way was up.
how long did you fight it before chopping?



Roy
They say I suffer from insanity.... But I actually enjoy it.

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I was spinning on my back like a frisbee after chop, I couldnt slow it down, it seemed to be getting faster. When I say fast I couldnt make out anything except my rig and handles. At 2000' Ditter Flat line I deployed. Reserve opened great but Iwas disappointed and had to sit for a bit to get my thoughts together. I bought the tru Lock risers from Vector in the attempt to not have that happen again. Brake fires on small high loaded crossbraced canopies are a disaster. I wish I could duck tape them in place until opened. The canopy was loaded at about 2.6, not sure if that helped or hurt.

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By far my most violent malfunction has been under a Katana 107 loaded at about 1.7. It had 5+ line twists before the canopy was even inflated, and when it did inflate I was on my side looking at a canopy crossing above and below the horizon. I think I chopped it at 2500 ft because there was absolutely no point in trying to fix it.

This past weekend my Velocity 90 (loaded at about 2.0) had only 3-4 line twists. As it was sniveling I could see/feel the twists so I did my best to hold the tops of the risers even in the hopes that the canopy would inflate flying level. I got close, but it was still in a gradual/medium turn to the right. I started to kick out but even the gradual turn made it hard to pick up momentum and I was passing though 1800 ft so I chopped it.

So in my experience, you can make line twists a less-severe malfunction by being proactive during your opening. Not necessarily fighting them, but just making sure you stay even in your harness and holding the risers even while the canopy inflates.

In the end, though, it's like another poster said, it's all about knowing your canopy. Could I have salvaged the Velocity opening last Saturday? Maybe. But when you fly a canopy where you do 270s from 600 ft, you have to appreciate that from 1800 ft you're potentially only a few revolutions from the ground.

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