Vector meshless pilot chute

[gunsmokex 1]

I've always found this video very interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yPshlycEJI

After watching I'm curious as to the reason that more do not have a meshless pilot chute. I spoke with my rigger the other day and asked him and he said that pretty much Vector is the only meshless pilot chute. Quite honestly after seeing this video that surprised me.

What I find that kind of disappoints me is that you go to the manufacturers website and they just have their generic product on there. Not really much information to the skydiver about what makes their rig better than the other guys apart from their mentions of materials colors and really nice pictures of their rig. From the few I looked at all the manufacturers just have the generic stuff up as if you were buying a TV, even UPT does this. I just happened to run across the video on youtube by chance. Very informative video though.

Instead you have to dig....DEEP to find much of anything here on DZ.com, youtube or in talking with people who have jumped the rigs or riggers who have packed them.

Anyways just wanted others thoughts on this video but truly I think the manufacturers could be a hell of a lot more informative on their websites than what they are now.

[Deimian 43]

gunsmokex

Anyways just wanted others thoughts on this video but truly I think the manufacturers could be a hell of a lot more informative on their websites than what they are now.

I couldn't agree more..... I think one of the few exceptions is SWS. It could of course be better, but their website is way more informative than most: http://sws.aero/en/products/fire/

[hackish 8]

It has often been a point of discussion and testing. Many companies will compare their RPC against others saying theirs produces more drag. While this may be true of meshed pilot chutes that in clean air and perfect orientation, the info in that video is not wrong at all.

Performance of the unit in a burble is often overlooked and a history of using them in AFF main deployment situations is a lot more testing than any single company could hope for in a reserve testing situation.

-Michael

[gunsmokex 1]

Wow! You aren't kidding! Very detailed website they go each and every component. Ive never heard of them but it looks like a very nice design. Thanks for sharing.

[gunsmokex 1]

Yes wn imperfect scenario is what you might find yourself in. The AFF burble is huge but a wingsuit burble is bigger. Id love to see a wingsuit comparison.

Seems like some companies are secretive about the design of their containers and systems and i just wish they'd be the opposite. I realize they cant give out trade secrets but still its my life i want to be able to make a very informed decision about my equipment not based on comfort and cokors. I jump a vector II now and im happy. But it is time to upgrade great rig i like knowing my RPC will perfom like this when i need it to though. Honestly makes me a little leary of others.

[hackish 8]

A primary consideration for me is a system with a MARD. Most times you need a reserve, you already have an open ball of nylon overhead.

Companies tend to be secretive because they have a lot of money into TSO testing and the design their rig is based on did have to pass their respective TSO requirements. Anything they say can and will be twisted around and presented in a negative light.

-Michael

[pchapman 261]

gunsmokex

After watching I'm curious as to the reason that more do not have a meshless pilot chute.

I think because there's a lot of debate about whether it is better or worse. It depends on the circumstances. Manufacturers have a variety of styles of pilot chutes out there, to some degree because there is no one dominant best style, and whatever each company has is "good enough", without changing their whole rig design.

Short PC and weaker spring? Like Racer and Javelin. True, but with an exposed or semi exposed PC, with many fewer flaps to push through, they apparently work just fine.

Super long skinny PC spring like Rigging Innovations? Fits with their rig design nicely, but whether better or worse, other companies don't happen to do it like that.

The standard PC is about half fabric, half mesh.

Companies like Wings and VSE try PC's that are closer to the Vector design, more like 3/4 fabric, 1/4 mesh. They're also trying for that idea of "more fabric to catch air in case it is being hit by airflow from the side", but maintaining traditional mesh. But then you get a case like that Wings reserve pilot chute in tow video from Quebec. Although a very rare case, and that case involved dragging the freebag around the jumper's shoulder, people then wonder if the reduced mesh design makes the reserve PC too low drag. Hard to know how often the design helped vs. hindered things compared to a traditional design.

Then there's a European company (Next? I don't recall offhand) which has a reserve PC where the bottom half has both strips of fabric and strips of mesh -- Also thus trying to get a compromise of SOME fabric on the bottom to catch air if sideways to the airflow, but still have enough mesh area for when the airflow is straight.

Then we move on to the Vector design. This had been debated too. How often will that design be better vs worse? No pilot chute is immune to all burbles. (I posted a video once of a Vector PC, used on a main, bounce around in the burble a couple times before taking off. But would another PC have taken any more time?) And some studies have shown the Vector PC to be one of the lowest drag reserve pilot chutes, especially at low airspeeds. (Not just from tests by competitor John Sherman of Jump Shack, but but also in a military study after a military accident.) Yet at the same time, what Bill Booth says about the PC catching air better when at the edge of a burble makes sense. And Vectors of all types have been some of the most built rigs ever.

So the debates continues. No common rig out there can easily be shown to be "bad", so everyone keeps going with their own designs.


As for gripes about manufacturers' web sites, I hear you on that. It can be very hard to find out design details unless you actually meet someone who bought one of their rigs recently.

[billbooth 10]

I really hope meshless pilot chutes work. I have built over 80 thousand of them.

[hackish 8]

Something I like about less mesh is that they tend to pack nicer. That mesh is really bulky.

-Michael

[jumpwally 0]

...almost the same debate as throw out vs pull out ,,,,they both work !!

smile, be nice, enjoy life
FB # - 1083

[Pobrause 6]

one thing I know for sure is that meshless pilotchutes swimm longer than ones with mesh. Sadly I didn't have one from Bill and watched in agony, as my PC sank to the bottom of the ocean just 50m away from the boat... 20 sec longer and I would have had it another thing I'm going to consider for my next rig

-------------------------------------------------------

To absent friends

[Anachronist 2]

Yeah I mean as far as testing goes skydiving is still very anecdotal and trial and error based. There is a lot of tinkering and testing with little to no statistical analysis (at least publically available). Kind of like old school racing before there was a ton of money and teams of engineers involved.

You could settle the whose RPC, MARD, and reserve is better once and for all, but it would require hundreds of jumps on each system in lots of different body positions (some of which would be dangerous even with a tertiary rig) with some form of data collection to quantify time accurately and precisely down to the second (fraction of a second really). And it really it isn't in any manufacturer's interest to do that except the one who comes out on top.

On top of all that to be really exacting, putting a RPC on a main (like the UPT video) could be a bit different than a RPC on a reserve, especially spinning or on one's back since the location of the RPC in relation to the axis of rotation and CG would be different. As for actual extraction, a freebag in a reserve tray is not the same as a regular Dbag in a main tray, and there could be some difference between having an empty or full main tray, you'd just have to make a lot of test jumps to find out how much.

[riggerrob 558]

AFF students have done hundreds of thousands of test-jumps with spring-loaded pilot-chutes in main containers. Lots of video is available.

[accumack 13]

Unless i'm mistaken most reserve deployments are from cutaways not terminal. I worked for Para-Flite when we were developing the first Ram-Air reserve. We did lots of testing on all components. The pilot chute got lots of attention. We looked at the most common reserve use being a cutaway (low speed at the time) and developed the high drag pilot chute with the large hole mesh. In the early 1980's we developed the meshless Swift main pilot chute as part of the Swift System as part of weight savings to build the lightest jumpable production system of the time with a target weight of 16lbs. when the standard rig weighed well over 20 lbs. We looked at the all fabric pilot chute but wouldn't compromise on the low speed drag from cutaways.

[Anachronist 2]

riggerrob

AFF students have done hundreds of thousands of test-jumps with spring-loaded pilot-chutes in main containers. Lots of video is available.

And almost none of it is quantifiable or statistically viable, unfortunately.