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skydiverek

What are the disadvantages of pop-tops?

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Riggers will bitch about them and talk them down and then charge you more to pack them. Racers use rubberbands in their stows I believe. I like my teardrop and bought it partially because it was a poptop - the big advantage being my reservepin is on my back and can not be bumped or displaced.

There is a big thread on here from back in the day where people thought they would of resulted in faster reserve deployments - reading through it I formed the opinion that if there was any advantage, not saying there is, it is basically negligible (if it exists at all) and if you're that low that it matters you have bigger problems. (Also look up the reserve pilotchute compression force paper ... I think the Vortex has the highest - nearly twice everything else on the market). Also no flaps go over your reserve pc - some have up to 7 I believe. I also don't think a skyhook can be fitted to poptops???

At the end of the day I like my poptop and would buy another as my first choice. In terms of reserve deployment (withough Skyhook or RSL) I wouldn't fewel any less safe with any of the major containers but for pin protection I like my container,

worth about.0000001 cent ;)

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There is a slightly better chance of catching lines under the pop-top as well. Properly rigged and packed, shouldn't be much of an issue, but it can happen. Pretty hard to catch a line on a Mirage/Icon/Vector3 (for exampe) reserve container.

Then you have the semi exposed ones (Wings/Javelins) which give you a little less chance of catching a line under the PC. I think Javelins have a slightly better chance of catching a line under the top flap, but Wings have a little tuck tab to keep that unlikely on their rigs.

All of this is IMO anyways. Take that for what its worth.
"I may be a dirty pirate hooker...but I'm not about to go stand on the corner." iluvtofly
DPH -7, TDS 578, Muff 5153, SCR 14890
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What are the disadvantages of pop-tops (fully exposed reserve pilotchute, like for instance on Racer, TearDrop, and Reflex)? Why did most manufacturers choose not to incorporate them?



you need to have a rigger trained, experienced and talented enough to pack them well....so that the PC sits nested down and is not a snag hazard. The most important aspect of a container is the reserve deployment. The fewer flaps that the PC needs to push out of the way the better. Zero is best. I will jump nothing else.

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Now that Ted is gone and Dan doesn’t participate in this forum, I guess It falls upon me to tell the story. The original Poptop Reserve was a chest mount designed and patented for Strong Enterprises by Dan Poynter. It was based upon the USAF emergency back.

I licensed the rights from Ted for use on the back as a “Piggy Back” We called it the SST. It had 2 pins. Steve Snyder Enterprises entered a license negations with us which eventually collapsed. They built some 400 rigs at Stinethal in North Carolina.

The video tapes from those days clearly showed a vast superiority in reserve deployment to the internal PC rigs. The marketing folks from the internal rigs denied that you could deploy a reserve in 2 seconds and claimed that their rigs were just as fast. “Tell a lie long enough and loud enough it becomes perceived as the truth”. That’s how the water got muddied about the speed of deployment.

Without license or permission a British company jumped into the fray but failed to understand the design and made a mess of it so bad that the red bulletins (safety notices) stacked about an inch high permeated the field.

Then the one pin internals came along and the public wanted a 1 pin poptop. We designed and patented one. We never released it as it presented more problems than were solvable and was not as good as the 2 pin.

The “Quick loop” (closing loop for the reserve) was designed and it took all of the work out of the pack job as it was adjustable after the container was closed and pined. Professional riggers will now tell you that a Racer Poptop is easier to pack than any internal.

Other Poptops were designed to take advantage of the superior design and they were mostly one pins. One pins require a large heave plate on the top of the spring to hold it place. These plates are heavy and in tests they fell away from a cutway main faster than the jumper.
Despite efforts to force me to change the design I have never found anything even equal to Poynters original design except the Quick loop modification.

For those who mention the possibility of line snag. They should speak with their rigger. Do not accept any pack job that will not allow a free passage of a line across the front surface of the container from any angle. Drag the line while it is in contact with the container across the poptop and if it snags the line the rigger needs to do it over. The idea is to make a recess like a baseball catchers glove into which the spring depresses. Done properly the poptop is less likely to catch a line than an internal.

I am posting here a link to show just how fast a poptop is. The video compares it to a MARD.
I suppose it will show you the disadvantages if there are any;).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ze0Rcp7E0to

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Without license or permission a British company jumped into the fray but failed to understand the design and made a mess of it so bad that the red bulletins (safety notices) stacked about an inch high permeated the field.



As I jump a 1 pin version of a poptop from a British company - does them making a mess of things extend to the 1 pin version?

I love the fact my reserve pin is against my back.
Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

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I am posting here a link to show just how fast a poptop is. The video compares it to a MARD.
I suppose it will show you the disadvantages if there are any;).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ze0Rcp7E0to



in 1st and 3rd clip, MARD is quicker in bringing the reserve to line stretch. What happens afterwards is dependant on the reserve packjob, fabric porosity (I was told from UPT that the yellow reserve you see in the clip had 100 deployments, so the inflation time is slower), so it is difficult to compare.

In the 2nd clip the Racer jumper gets a "headstart" (left and right portions of the video screen are not "synchronized"). But even with this "headstart" the MARD jumper achieves the line stretch quicker!

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I would say one reason is because they´re more "difficult" for a rigger to pack. That´s what I hear from them.



I've heard the same thing. I've only packed 6 or 7 in the last 3 years and I didn't find them any more difficult than any other container. I got a Racer Packing DVD from Nancy a few months ago. I watched it several times and once again when I got a racer to pack a couple weeks ago. Using the techniques in the video it went very smooth. Didn't even break a sweat.

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I don't see any disadvantages , but I see one small advantage. When the rig is packed, you CAN see IF the loop is going trough the cutter of the AAD :)

"My belief is that once the doctor whacks you on the butt, all guarantees are off" Jerry Baumchen

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in 1st and 3rd clip, MARD is quicker in bringing the reserve to line stretch. What happens afterwards is dependant on the reserve packjob, fabric porosity (I was told from UPT that the yellow reserve you see in the clip had 100 deployments, so the inflation time is slower), so it is difficult to compare.

In the 2nd clip the Racer jumper gets a "headstart" (left and right portions of the video screen are not "synchronized"). But even with this "headstart" the MARD jumper achieves the line stretch quicker!



So what. The MARD is sometimes as fast as the Racer. The Racer has been out there for over 30 years and has always been that fast. The MARD has a comparatively short life. It takes a mininum of 10 years to field prove a reserve system. The Racer certainly has not had as many failures in that total time as the MARDs have had in their short life. European Riggers have reported to me a 15-20% failure rate on MARDs. If you are willing to risk your life on that "Rube Goldberg" system then go for it. If you believe everything UPT tells you I've got some good Florida land I would like to sell you.

BTW: Life does not begin at line streatch. It begins when the rate of decent is arrested. People have been trying to divide the sequence for a long time to make excuses for their poor overall performance.
Pull to open is all that matters. But if you are comfortable landing at line streatch so be it.

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As you can see people have some strong opinions about this stuff. My opinion is that TSOed one pin and two pin, and internal and external all have been proven in the field for many years.

People will argue about this stuff in the same way that theologians once argued about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Like many preferences, belief in the System can become almost a faith.

Bottom line for me is simple. If it has two pins it needs two cutters. Almost no one buys two pin containers anymore, mostly for this reason. If you don't believe me just look around the DZ and count them up.


Ken
Always remember the brave children who died defending your right to bear arms. Freedom is not free.

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I used to think that Pop-Tops were difficult to pack, then a german rigger told me about Ghost Loops.
A decade later the Racer Factory started giving out free Ghost Loops.
Bottom line: there are two ways to pack Pop-Tops: Ghost Loops ... or ... the hard way.

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If you are willing to risk your life on that "Rube Goldberg" system then go for it. If you believe everything UPT tells you I've got some good Florida land I would like to sell you.



I realize that Skyhook may disconnect (when not needed) 15% of time. I would still buy it, NOT for the reason of cutting away at 100 feet (my hard deck would stay the same as without MARD), but for the reason that quicker line stretch means less chance of getting entangled in reserve lines, due to tumbling after unstable cutaway. So, that would be an advantage in 85% of cutaways with MARD (quicker line stretch standing you up), as opposed to cutting away with Racer. 'Life does not begin at life stratch' (as you say), but the tumbling stops and this is what matters, and may be the difference between life and death. Unstable cutaway killed few tandems (and more solo jumpers) already, and Skyhook was to prevent this.

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Life (...) begins when the rate of decent is arrested.



OK, so I want MARD and the 'instant inflation reserve' that you used in your Clip 3. That would be a perfect combination ;)!

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