Worst rig

[billvon 2,396]

>The reason the RSL caused a malfunction was because a dumb ass
>rigger mis-routed it!

Agreed. You can misroute a great many things on any rig; the Racer RSL is just more susceptible to such problems due to its continuous design. It is also more dangerous in two-out situations; another fatality was caused by a jumper who cut away from a two-out, only to find the RSL strangling her reserve.

That's not to say that the Racer is a bad rig. I had one for about 1500 jumps and had no problems with it. But it has problems like any rig does, and claiming that its reserve system is bulletproof is no more true than claiming any other reserve system is bulletproof.

[pchapman 261]

This thread seems fairly flexible. In some cases it is about the lousiest rig one would jump, in other cases it is the lousiest one has jumped.

So here goes, for a long post…


There are plenty of things I might jump occasionally, with solo exits, and without a crowd in freefall. So then one can put up with terrible riser or pin protection, or canopies with crappy landings. To define what one would jump, it can be easier to describe what one WOULDN'T jump.

-- While I still have a couple Phantom 24's, I'd prefer not to jump a rig with a Phantom 22 reserve (max weight recommended 155 lbs), or a 20 foot K-XX, both of which are in the Low Speed category. Just getting too light weight especially when 20+ years old. A good old solidly built Strong LoPo? No problem.

-- If I'm jumping a round reserve, I really like having one with a diaper. A diaper is too much of an improvement for me to ignore.

-- I do not want to jump a ParaCommander if the rig still has 2 shot Capewells and a no pilot chute reserve. With a high performance round like a PC that can really spin up, I want to be able to chop it, and not try have to try to toss in the direction of the spin and avoid the reserve barber poling. A friend put a couple jumps on his PC when he still had 2 shots about 2 years back; so I and another friend with a Capewell conversion device went and changed his Capewells to 1 1/2 shots.

-- Some things one may have a gut aversion to, maybe because one isn't familiar with them, whether or not they actually are OK. I'm not, for example, all that interested in jumping a Pioneer Para Twin rig, with its disconnectable reserve. Just a bit creepy. Even though Rocket Jet releases, with a safety pin too, should hold perfectly well. They're just not suited for main canopy cutaways under load.


As for crappy stuff I have jumped:

-- A National Renegade (220) main. Their line of mains wasn't well known; perhaps they sucked. Which doesn't bode well for their even less-known line of ram air reserves. The mains did have a bulletin out about changing the brake lines to improve the flare. Although I was a novice at the time, the 220 square feet of the Renegade gave me a lousy landing in low wind despite being only 140 lbs at the time.

-- Single keel Paradactyl -- Truly a scary canopy, that I get less enthusiastic about as time goes by. At least on mine, it has a high stall point, susceptibility to turbulence, and a stall that can be unrecoverable for 10 seconds. So if something goes wrong under 500', it could kill you. While that all matches what I've heard about others of the breed, it might not help that I've since found that the lines on the one I jumped, were assembled a little bit wrong on the risers well before I got it. Dual keels are so much nicer.

-- When mixing and matching old gear for CRW, I did make a couple jumps on a rig with a leg throwout, but the canopy & accessories came from another rig, so there was no pile velcro on the bridle. So for the short term I just stuck bits of pile velcro across and around the bridle, along the long stretch of hook velcro, to keep the bridle in place.

-- There's an old accuracy rig at the DZ that the DZO uses as a spare or lends out. It is an ancient Racer (c. 1980?), and between using parapack and being sized for a big Parafoil, it is ugly. Risers are completely exposed, with just a couple tabs of webbing and velcro to cross the risers and hold them in place. That's OK for the era, and in fact they are kind of protected the way the Racer routes them around from the shoulders to the backpad of the rig, hiding them somewhat from the outside world.

The rig was pretty much new-old-stock, unusued for a couple decades, and then the DZO had me assemble it. I replaced or removed over a dozen #0 grommets in the thing, because the quality of them was so bad. Someone sure accepted imperfections in the dies in those days, leading to bascially every grommets being nicked. (The nicks weren't right down in the center of the bore, so they wouldn't start cutting closing loops right away, but still not good.) It also had those 4 extra grommets on the side flaps (plus backpad), which were used for temporarily tying the rig tighter. The grommets are covered by the pilot chute cap in service. Unnecessary in any case, and also the source of horror stories I've heard from long ago, where the rig would have totalled because someone closed it with the "temporary" cords still in place.

I was handed a decent if old square reserve to put on it. But the rig was built with SHORT reserve risers, as sometimes used in the round reserve days. I must have rebuilt the steering line guide rings, for if there were any already there, then they were for unstressed steering lines as on some rounds, not built to take opening loads like on squares. If one had to use the reserve, the steering toggles (and guide rings) would be right beside one's head. Really ugly but it will function.

[Amazon 7]

I have one.. wanna jump it in the water

Its in an old Wonderhog..... with a 26' LoPo... oh and it has a BOC we put on there..the belly band pocket was cool.. but gotta change with the times ya know

[dragon2 0]

Now THIS pullout is just ... wrong ....

ciel bleu,
Saskia

[riggerrob 558]

The worst round reserve I ever jumped was a military-surplus, 24 foot diameter, T-10 reserve ... un-steerable.
Good thing I was skinny and bullet-proof back in those days.

Fast forward 30 years and I jumped a Parachutes de France S.O.S. 5-cell, square reserve.
The S.O.S. opened fine, but every time I touched steering toggle, it oscillated. Flaring required pulling the steering toggles deeper than my Amigo, but I did not even do a full flare for landing, just slid it out in the snow.
In retrospect, that S.O.S. was better than a round - because it allowed me to steer towards the correct country - but not much better.

[Master_Yoda 0]

Quote

>Btw, here's now NOT to progress in canopies.
>Manta>Raven 4>PD 210> Excalibur 170

Yep. Unfortunately that's been supplanted by progressions like Navigator 235>Sabre2 170>Sabre2 150>Nitro 150 (by 35 jumps.)

OK, so ummm... Going from a DC5->StrataCloud Delta->Laser 7 220->(20+ year break)->PD Pulse 170???

Just asking. I was considering buying the Pulse.

[skydiverek 55]

Quote

Ever see these videos . . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYIUjKGxagI&feature=player_embedded

---> Can happen on ANY rig due to a poor rigging:
http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?do=post_view_flat;post=2101957;page=1;mh=-1;;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC

Quote

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=889765176342&ref=mf

---> At that angle, this would would be you, deploying your reserve (from a TOTAL malfunction) in a stand-up postion (180 mph wind)... Simply, unrealistic "test".

[riggerrob 558]

" ... As for crappy stuff I have jumped:

-- Single keel Paradactyl -- Truly a scary canopy, that I get less enthusiastic about as time goes by. At least on mine, it has a high stall point, susceptibility to turbulence, and a stall that can be unrecoverable for 10 seconds. So if something goes wrong under 500', it could kill you. While that all matches what I've heard about others of the breed, it might not help that I've since found that the lines on the one I jumped, were assembled a little bit wrong on the risers well before I got it. ..."

.....................................................................................

Funny!
But I had the exact opposite experience with a Paradactyl. I only made one jump on that single-keel Paradactyl and rather enjoyed it. It opened and turned fine. the flare was nothing spectacular, more like a Cruiseair (200 square foot, F-111, ram-air canopy built by Para-flite in 1980).
If squares had not been invented, I would have cheerfully made a few hundred jumps on Paradactyls.

I vote for DELTA II as the worst canopy I ever jumped. The Opening Shock Inhibitor did not live up to its name. I only made four hop-and-pops on that Delta II, but three of them slammed my face into the front-mounted reserve. Toggle pressure was ridiculous and the flare was so weak that I never stood up a landing.

[ZigZagMarquis 8]

Quote

So what's the worst rig you can come up with? Let's make it a rig you would actually jump if you really had to (say for an off-DZ jump where landing in salt water was a likely result...

Naro container.

Turbo Z main.

Old 5-cell Swift with the fly-away brake lines.

[Andy9o8 0]

What gear considered modern gear today is likely to be considered among the "worst gear" when viewed through the lens of time, say, 20 years from now? Any nominations or predictions?

[JohnRich 4]

Quote

What gear considered modern gear today is likely to be considered among the "worst gear" when viewed through the lens of time, say, 20 years from now? Any nominations or predictions?

All of it. Except for the old farts who are still around that jumped it, and know better.

[Andy9o8 0]

Quote

Quote

What gear considered modern gear today is likely to be considered among the "worst gear" when viewed through the lens of time, say, 20 years from now? Any nominations or predictions?

All of it. Except for the old farts who are still around that jumped it, and know better.

Heh, heh. Of course, what I mean is: What will the old (or older!) farts of 2028 consider to be the worst gear that they jumped way back in the circa 2010 era?

And BTW, guys, don't knock the 24-foot flat reserves. If it wasn't for one of them back in 1976, Speaker's Corner wouldn't be the Liberal Paradise it is today.

[crotalus01 0]

Quote

What gear considered modern gear today is likely to be considered among the "worst gear" when viewed through the lens of time, say, 20 years from now? Any nominations or predictions?

I would hazard to guess the Sabre 1 based solely on its tendency to slam the shit out of you on any given opening.
I absolutely loved flying my Sabre 190 but I finally retired it after several brutal openings. The final straw was one that broke 9 lines, tore the bottom skin, ripped a cell and ripped 2 attachment points off. And that was with an oversized slider that PD sent me, and very very meticulous packing.

As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD...

[dks13827 2]

Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy,,, my Strato Star was super, I was the biggest guy at my DZ with one, 180 lbs, loved it !! In OK there was always some wind to help make nice landings !!

had to tease you !!!

[dks13827 2]

well, Neil Armstrong can vouch for the C-9 ! from low altitude ejection, too !!! )

[Master_Yoda 0]

I've got a couple I could talk about as being "the worst" I've ever jumped.
The first rig I ever owned was a RTS container with a Stratacloud main and 24" round reserve with a 4 line release. I can't remember the make the reserve was. But the container no longer had a TSO tag on it so I was only able to jump it on Ft. Bragg and at Raeford. I probably put 100 jumps on it before I bought a new rig. I even deployed the reserve once! The guy who sold it to me couldn't believe I chopped the main and went to the reserve with it. But no issues, it set me down fairly soft even if I was off the DZ.

The other nomination I have was a club loaner rig. It was an old Racer container which was OK and a main which was once used by the Golden Knights. They sent a bunch of their used gear to the 82d Parachute Club for use as loaners to students who had recently graduated from student status. I don't recall the make of the main but it had been used in GK demos and was covered with tiny holes which were burned into the canopy from the slag coming off the smoke grenades. For a 7 cell over 200 sq ft it had the squirlliest openings I had ever experienced. My first reserve ride was on one those canopies... a low speed spinning malfunction.
So there ya are, my two nominations and the only two mains I ever cutaway.
By the way, as I recall the club rigger grounded all those old GK canopies after another young jumper also chopped one.

[Andy9o8 0]

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the club rigger grounded all those old GK canopies after another young jumper also chopped one.

Time was when mil-surp was a good way to get cheap gear for a couple hundred bucks. Guess that's relegated to the horse & buggy days, too.

[BlindBrick 0]

A couple from my younger, and a fair bit dumber, days.

1. Right after becoming a freshly minted rigger, I started experimenting with different gear configs. Definitely not the smartest thing to do since I was so green (celebrated getting my ticket by making my 50th jump). The experimenting stopped after I took a Laser 9 (packed like a reserve since I learned to pack reserves first) to terminal with a smallish bikini slider meant for a Raven. Not sure which was freakier, watching my vision fade away down a gray tunnel on opening or coming to an unknown amount of time later under canopy.

2. Wanted to BASE jump but didn't have the scratch for a new setup and there wasn't anything used in my size. So I scrounged up a surplus MT-1, had a tail pocket sewn on, slapped a mesh slider and BASE-specific PC on it and shoehorned it in to a Mirage M-9. Got it wet on the first jump and the thing manged to pack up even bulkier for the second jump. The result was something that would have made a CReWdog's pack job look textbook.

I remember the guy doing pin checks at the exit point. His mantra was "your pin's good, your container looks good, have fun." He looked at my stuff and went "Your pin's good, and your container's.... well, good luck." One of the hardest openings I've ever had, and that's saying something coming from a guy's who normal deployment speed is around 163.



-Blind

"If you end up in an alligator's jaws, naked, you probably did something to deserve it."

[lekstrom10k 0]

I remember SST as Super Sonic Total and Struggle Struggle Thud. My personal worst rig was a Classiflier with frap wraps, {the flat plates with the cord passing through} It was a B-4 harness with all the adjustments that never stayed. It had a piggy back system attached but not secured t directly to the harness . If you were tracking it slid to the back of your helmet ,on opening it covered you butt. Mine was a pretty red and only purchased asit was the only rig on the shelf at the time,no waiting

[jumpwally 0]

Lotsa ayears with no stories,,,got to be more by now....

smile, be nice, enjoy life
FB # - 1083

[zoobrothertom 5]

I'll throw in the original Centaurus from around '84 or so.

The cutaway handle and reserve ripcord were above the chest strap!

When you sat under canopy, the handles were just about level with your chin. I had a cutaway on one that scared me because you have less leverage at that angle. It wasn't so much a hard pull but rather an awkward angle that didn't allow a jumper to put their full strength into it. It took an extra couple of seconds get a canopy out. NOT good when you're down and dirty!

____________________________________
I'm back in the USA!!

[Bob_Church 7]

Here's a question for everyone. Let's exclude unintentional openings, the head down accidental pilot chute extractions, that sort of thing.
This is a skydiver throwing out their pilot chute because it's time to get canopy.
Which models of parachutes have killed skydivers during this sort of opening? Which models have put people in the hospital with injuries?

[Bob_Church 7]

Something that seems to have changed big time is that gear, or at least rigs, don't go out of date like they used to. When I started jumping if you had a rig that was five years old people would stare at you when you got on the plane. I know, I always had old gear. But I bought my Quasar 2 twenty years ago and it still looks current and I see no reason to replace it.