Reverse S fold pack job

[Elpnor 5]

Anyone have any experience with reverse s fold packing? I'm a big guy with a big canopy, and putting a knee on my first fold often makes it squirt to the sides. A reverse s fold makes for a cleaner pack job for me, but I worry about the slider creeping up when the last fold is put in place. If anyone has a video out there of them packing it this way, that'd be cool. There's one on youtube, but its so so. I've watched Nick Grillets vid on how to pack a large canopy, but I think that works better if youre a slender spider monkey. No offense Nick

[Westerly 61]

I do the reverse S fold method too and find it's worked out so far for me. I am not a packing wizard so dont take my advice for much. However, I have the same concerns about the slider that you do. As such my solution has been this. Before garbing the tail to fold into the bag, I grab the lines pulling them tight from the rig and I slide one hand up the lines until I hit the slider grommets. I then push the grommets up against the slider stops and hold the slider grommets up and against the slider stops as I fold the tail into the bag. I suspect this reduces the chance of the slider moving around because I am physically holding the slider grommets against the slider stops as I put the tail into the bag. If I am ever unsure, I just unroll the tail a bit so I can physically see the slider grommets to ensure they are against the stops. Honestly, I dont know if it matters to have a tight roll on the tail or not, but I've tried both a tight roll and no roll at all and I havent really noticed much of a difference.

[Elpnor 5]

I've seriously considered using a stick to push into the slider just before the last fold to make sure the fabric of the slider is where it's suppose to be. I've had one walloping hard opening with normal pro packing, and that was enough.

[evh 22]

I have always packed that way since I got my own gear. Much easier to control the fabric, and for me results in much neater packjobs. I don't think it affects the slider, compared to "normal" packing. At least I never had any problems that I know of. I guess I have done rougly 1800 packjobs that way, most on a Pilot 168 and a Crossfire 129, a few on a Navigator 240 and the smallest was a Katana 107.

[Elpnor 5]

Thanks for the post! That makes me feel a bit better about it.

[pchapman 261]

I like the reverse S-fold method too. Handy for unruly, puffy, slippery new canopies, or super small canopies where the full stack with both S folds gets too tall and narrow to control easily.

I haven't gone as far as Westerly does to control the slider, but yeah, control the slider. When doing that 2nd S-fold with the bottom of the canopy, get a good grip on the tightly tail-wrapped bottom of the canopy -- the slider grommets will be right in there or just a little further into the canopy. A good grip doesn't leave space for the slider to slide back down the lines.

Then when making the fold, try to maintain a little tension on the lines. That way one's hand is pushing "up the lines" and won't allow the slider to squirt out of ones grip on the base of the canopy or let it slide down the lines.

Since the container is likely still anchored at least to some degree, to maintain tension, that may mean one lifts the base of the canopy - where one has the grip - off the floor, and moves the bag underneath it, to do that stuffing of the final S into the bag, vertically downwards into the bag.

[councilman24 36]

When you put your knee on it do NOT put your entire weight on it. Keep your weight on the other knee and only put enough pressure on the canopy to keep it in place, a few pounds.

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

[peek 20]

councilman24

When you put your knee on it do NOT put your entire weight on it. Keep your weight on the other knee and only put enough pressure on the canopy to keep it in place, a few pounds.

Good point, and I was thinking of saying something similar. A person needs to "train their knee" so that it feels just the right amount of pressure, and does not use too much pressure, or the canopy folds will slide off each other.

[jumpwally 0]

How about a rubber band on the tail to hold slider ? I've seen it before...

smile, be nice, enjoy life
FB # - 1083

[UpstateBonehead 0]

I jump a big canopy and after struggling with getting it into the bag for too many pack jobs to count, my DZO took pity on me and introduced me to this method. Works like a charm and I've never (knock, knock) had any issues with openings. Blues!

"I shall not die of a cold. I shall die of having lived." Willa Cather

[councilman24 36]

The rubber band on the slider was either to speed up opening or slow them down depending on who you believed. Two theories, both probably true. Rubber band kept it from falling down before it was inflated and there by having a hard fast opening. Or rubber band held it up until canopy pressure forced it loose and it sling shot down faster for a faster opening.

One it opens faster, on it opens slower. Pick one.

But shouldn't't be used to keep slider in place because you can't control it.

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

[dthames 0]

jumpwally

How about a rubber band on the tail to hold slider ? I've seen it before...

I fold my foot under my butt, with the top of my foot holding the slider end of the cocooned part of the canopy. Most of my weight is on my knees, with just light pressure holding the canopy with my foot. I made the first S fold from the crown end and trap the folded part between my knees while I get the bag on it. Then I pivot around, tidy up the slider end of the cocoon, fold it over and shove it between what is in the bag, to get it all in the bag.

Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”

[Elpnor 5]

I'm a big guy that's not so good on my knees. It's hard to do all the knee manipulation required for a typical pack. I can do it, but often I end up with a squishy mess shoved into the bag. The reverse s fold gives me a cleaner pack job with a smaller volume in my d bag. As long as my slider is in a good spot it's a much better solution.

[Westerly 61]

One thing I see a lot of people do is kneel on the slider while pushing the air out. While I am far from an expert on the matter, I typically disagree with putting my knees on the slider grommets. If I am going to put my knees on anything, I put it on fabric next to the slider, but never directly on the grommets. The idea is that when you go from kneeling to laying (to squeeze the air out), your knees will rotate on the ground whether you want them to or not because you're rolling your body forward. I see people lay down, sit up, lay down, sit up. Every time you move, your knees move and if your knees are on the slider grommets, then the grommets are moving too. Thus, I keep off the slider grommets and kneel on the fabric instead. Again, you can always check the position of the slider grommets before putting the canopy in the bag by grabbing the lines, running one hand up and pushing the hand against the slider grommets forcing them against the stops.

Also, the OP mentioned he had a hard opening. Do you know that the hard opening was caused by the slider? Did you specifically remember packing the canopy knowing that there was an issue with the slider? I ask because packing techniques are not the only thing that can influence a hard opening. While a poor slider position certainly can cause a hard opening and it’s a common reason for hard openings, experiencing a hard opening does not absolutely guarantee it was an issue with the slider position while packing.

This is a really great video on what can cause hard openings. I learned a lot watching it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLJdDXJ9qBI

[Elpnor 5]

No idea what caused the hard opening. It was a monster. Broke my left riser and knocked me silly. I was vaguely aware I should cut away and pulled the reserve. I regained some focus, realized my mistake and cut away. I have watched that video, and all the info out there on hard openings. One possible culprit is I single wrapped my locking stows, since they were tight with the thickness of the lines, the first two anyway, and double wrapped the rest. It's conceivable I had bag strip. I double wrap all of my stows now, and replace stows even if they show a bit of damage, especially the locking stows. I always push the slider against the grommet stops before I close the bag, so a creeping slider doesn't seem to a likely suspect. I've got my rig on the floor right now, and plan on making sure my knees are above the grommets.

[Westerly 61]

Elpnor

No idea what caused the hard opening. It was a monster. Broke my left riser and knocked me silly. I was vaguely aware I should cut away and pulled the reserve. I regained some focus, realized my mistake and cut away. I have watched that video, and all the info out there on hard openings. One possible culprit is I single wrapped my locking stows, since they were tight with the thickness of the lines, the first two anyway, and double wrapped the rest. It's conceivable I had bag strip. I double wrap all of my stows now, and replace stows even if they show a bit of damage, especially the locking stows. I always push the slider against the grommet stops before I close the bag, so a creeping slider doesn't seem to a likely suspect. I've got my rig on the floor right now, and plan on making sure my knees are above the grommets.

Wait, so you're saying you single wrapped the locking stows and double wrapped the line stows? I am assuming you dont have an RSL since you said you had to cutaway (thus no collins lanyard) and you dident mention a main-reserve entanglement (so no MARD or RSL I presume)?

What condition were your risers in and how heavy are you? Mini risers I assume? I actually buy the fullsize type 8 risers with mini rings for this reason in hopes that I wont ever have a riser failure.

[Elpnor 5]

I single wrapped the two inner locking stows, and double wrapped all the others. I did have a skyhook, but I was semi unconscious and pulled the reserve handle before the cutaway. I had half a parachute flapping over me. I then cutaway and got under my reserve. It wasn't pretty, but it worked. They were the full size risers in excellent condition. I'm super tall and weigh 250. I told you it was a hell of a hit. Grabbing my pilot chute is not the stress free moment it used to be.

[Westerly 61]

Elpnor

I single wrapped the two inner locking stows, and double wrapped all the others. I did have a skyhook, but I was semi unconscious and pulled the reserve handle before the cutaway. I had half a parachute flapping over me. I then cutaway and got under my reserve. It wasn't pretty, but it worked. They were the full size risers in excellent condition. I'm super tall and weigh 250. I told you it was a hell of a hit. Grabbing my pilot chute is not the stress free moment it used to be.

Crazy. I am not sure how the main could have gotten out of the bag if you double stowed the two outer locking stows. While double stowing the two outer locking stows is probably not as secure as doing all four, I would think it would still be sufficient to keep the main in the bag. Even if the two inner stows came off, I would think the main still wouldn't be able to come out with the two outer stows still on. I supposed one option could be that the two inner stows came off out of sequence, the two outer stows dident release until they were supposed to, but then because the two inner stows allowed for slack in the system as soon as the second outer stow came off the slider then came down while the lines were slack. I supposed that is possible. Anytime there is slack in the lines and the canopy is out of the bag there is the potential for the slider to come down.

Otherwise I am curious as to what else could have happened. Maybe one of the riser covers hung up allowing for monetary slack in the lines. Do you have tuck tab riser covers? What main were you using? I asked bout the RSL and MARD because if you have an RSL side riser failure then the failed riser can extract your main and now you have a two out. The collins lanyard is intended to eliminate that risk. This assumes your RSL is on your left side. I think UPT and maybe some few other brands put it on the right side.

[Elpnor 5]

230 sabre 2, upt vector, riser covers. The rsl is on the right side, and my left riser is the one that broke, right at the three rings. I say broke, not failed, as I learned that they are intended to brake at a certain point of shock the theory being better riser failure than dead skydiver. I think it likely that if that riser didn't break, I'd be kaput. As it was I drove to the hospital to check for internal damage. I missed two months of work and felt like I'd been in a car crash. I really can't think of any reason for the hard opening other than packing error. I wish they had a way for the grommets to stick to the stops until the parachute opened. There have been many ideas, magnets, rubber bands reefing the slider to a line and such. None have been practical. Which brings me back to the point of this thread. Anyone else reverse s fold out there?

[mathrick 2]

The "reverse" method is the standard one taught in Denmark, so it feels funny to call it "reverse". Pretty much everyone in DK uses it, and we don't have a flurry of hard openings. I personally have transitioned to psycho packs for my packjobs, but if I pro pack it, I do it that way.

In my limited experience, if you take appropriate care to push down on the slider after quartering it, maintain as much tension on the lines as possible, and then check that the grommets are still against the slider stops by the time you do the final fold into the bag, it opens fine even if the bagging part was embarrassingly messy. The only hard opening I've ever had (thankfully it was only "ouch!" hard, not "where am I?" hard) was on student gear and a packjob by someone else, a student.

Basically, brakes set and stowed, slider against the stops, PC cocked are the only *really* important parts of a packjob. Separate the fabric from the lines and stow them properly for best results, but those are more about keeping the canopy free of line burns than anything else. People used to freepack their trashpacks after all, and they didn't all die of hard openings.

"Skydivers are highly emotional people. They get all excited about their magical black box full of mysterious life saving forces."

[Elpnor 5]

Really? The reverse s fold is standard in Denmark? My ancestors are smart people. I'm going to do a youtube search for Danish pack jobs and see if I can find one. I'd add proper line stow tension to your list of critical items in a pack job. I was blase about my stows before, but now I'm finicky about them. I always double wrap and replace the locking stows when they look damaged. Thanks for the post

[mathrick 2]

The thing is, there isn't a real agreement about whether line dumps even exist / are a problem. There are no stows when you freepack, and it was apparently OK for years. If you watch John LeBlanc's talk (youtube), you'll see that while he does mention stows and stow tension, he points to other things as much more correlated to actual incidence of hard opening. Such as tuck tabs on riser covers. Stow tension is on the "nice to have if you like your fabric unburnt" list, not "need to have or else" one.

"Skydivers are highly emotional people. They get all excited about their magical black box full of mysterious life saving forces."

[Westerly 61]

mathrick

The thing is, there isn't a real agreement about whether line dumps even exist / are a problem. There are no stows when you freepack, and it was apparently OK for years. If you watch John LeBlanc's talk (youtube), you'll see that while he does mention stows and stow tension, he points to other things as much more correlated to actual incidence of hard opening. Such as tuck tabs on riser covers. Stow tension is on the "nice to have if you like your fabric unburnt" list, not "need to have or else" one.

Line dump, yes I agree that it's questionable as to whether that is a concern. Bag strip on the other hand I think is commonly accepted as a serious malfunction. My understanding is that line dump and bag strip are not the same thing. Line dump occurs when the line stows (not locking stows, line stows) come off the bag. In semi stowless and reserve freebags you dont really have much line tension anyway so you could kind of argue that line dump occurs on every opening with those types of bags.

My understanding is that bag strip occurs when the locking stows come off before line stretch and the canopy is free to come out of the bag while the lines are still loose. I view that is a very serious malfunction because no line tension means that the slider can come down instantly giving you a mostly or fully open canopy by the time you come to line stretch. There are some photos and videos of this occurring floating around the net and the end result is always an extremely hard opening. The idea with the double stow method is that it greatly reduces the chances of bag strip (compared to loose single stows) because it makes it harder for the locking stows to come off prior to line stretch ensuring that the stows only come off when they should come off.

It’s funny you mention the tuck tab issue as a possible cause of hard openings because by contrast ‘tons’ of people have tuck tabs. There are several manufacturers that only make tuck tab rigs. In fact, I would envision that far more companies make tuck tabs than make magnetic riser covers. Yet people arnt having hard openings left and right as a result. Don’t get me wrong, the tuck tab issue is something I have thought about and I even asked the manufacturer of my rig about it. I can fully see how having the riser covers open last in the sequence could result in slack in the lines allowing the slider to come down and it's made me wonder why more rig manufacturers dont use magnets instead. Yet, millions of jumps are made on rigs with tuck tabs. So it’s kind of an iffy situation as conventional wisdom says they are a concern, yet just about everyone has them on their rig.

In terms of packing priorities , I think the main priorities (not in order) are:

- Quarter slider and make sure it's against the slider stops before bagging (hard opening)
- Cock PC (pilot chute in tow malfunction)
- Make sure slider stops are clear of lines (lineover malfunction)
- Ensure adequate stow tension on locking stows (bag strip).
- Make sure there are no lines or bridle wrapped around your closing loop and there is a clear path from the PC to the closing pin (pilot chute in tow malfunction).
-Conduct a proper line check (step-through malfunction)

[mathrick 2]

Certainly having proper line stows and deployment sequence is important and I do double stow my lines. But it's also by far the most controversial aspect of packing, and neither side seems to have so many more malfunctions as to be clearly wrong. To be clear, I'm in the "make sure you stow your lines properly" camp, but I'm more yielding and less religious about variations there than about sliders.

Re: tuck tabs, I know that, but if you watch his video, you will hear his argument, including the fact that hard openings were not really a thing before tuck tabs, and canopies back in the day opened way faster than the namby-pamby stuff we use today :). The argument isn't that having tuck tabs will certainly give you a hard opening, it's that when hard openings happen, tuck tabs seem to be the culprit in a lot of cases. That tuck tabs can be too stiff is absolutely a fact. I can't find it now, but I've read a post by someone who had the riser covers not release on one side. There are also incidents of people landing with their riser covers still closed. Which is terrifying, because in that case you might not be able to cut away, especially in a high-speed, low-drag malfunction.

Brakes are very important, since pretty much all canopies (with NZ Aero ones being the notable exception) are designed to open in half-brakes, and not setting them leads to a massive surge on opening, dramatically increasing the likelihood of malfunctions. Setting them badly also increases the chance of potentially serious issues like a brake fire, or toggles whipping around and entangling with stuff.

"Skydivers are highly emotional people. They get all excited about their magical black box full of mysterious life saving forces."

[Westerly 61]

mathrick

Re: tuck tabs, I know that, but if you watch his video, you will hear his argument, including the fact that hard openings were not really a thing before tuck tabs, and canopies back in the day opened way faster than the namby-pamby stuff we use today :). The argument isn't that having tuck tabs will certainly give you a hard opening, it's that when hard openings happen, tuck tabs seem to be the culprit in a lot of cases. That tuck tabs can be too stiff is absolutely a fact. I can't find it now, but I've read a post by someone who had the riser covers not release on one side. There are also incidents of people landing with their riser covers still closed. Which is terrifying, because in that case you might not be able to cut away, especially in a high-speed, low-drag malfunction.

Brakes are very important, since pretty much all canopies (with NZ Aero ones being the notable exception) are designed to open in half-brakes, and not setting them leads to a massive surge on opening, dramatically increasing the likelihood of malfunctions. Setting them badly also increases the chance of potentially serious issues like a brake fire, or toggles whipping around and entangling with stuff.

I did watch the video and found it interesting. I see how having a stiff tuck tab could cause a problem, but I also envision every manufacturer is aware of this concern and yet most companies use tuck tabs. So the question then would be why? If magnets are safer, why do companies use tuck tabs? I asked Mirage this once and their response was that magnets dont stay closed when freeflying sometimes.

So the question then would be which is more serious, a riser cover opening in free fall or a riser cover failing to open correctly? Seems like a riser cover opening in freefall is more of an annoyance than a legitimate safety concern, but admittedly I am not sure.

It's interesting that you said a brake fire is a serious issue. I thought it was a minor issue unless you have a highly loaded canopy which will dive and spin hard with a stuck toggle. I've accidentally unstowed one toggle after opening and not the other. When that happened the canopy barely spun at all with a 1:1 WL. I could easily counteract the spin just by pulling a hair on the opposite rear riser, so I guess I was always under the assumption that if the toggle comes off during deployment that it wouldent matter much. Now I can see the issue with the toggles being off prior to opening, thanks for that. But what about if the toggle pops while opening and you're not running a high performance canopy? Is it that serious of an issue?