Are Tandem Rigs a lot more likely to malfunction?

[altichick 0]

I'm beggining to think so ...
1200+ sport jumps, 1 mal (#926)
61 tandems, 2 mals (#37 and #61)

I know, it doesn't prove anything... could just be coincidence. Good to have had the experience I guess! Here's hoping that's it for a while!

Don't sweat the petty things... and don't pet the sweaty things!

[jduebi 0]

Some friends of me went to a french DZ to make some tandem jumps. They told me (everyone of them), that the opening was pretty hard. I also made a tandem on a czech DZ near prague, and the opening was realy fluffy soft.

I'm just doing my licenc and won't make any tandem jumps anymore.

But there are even more friends who would like to do a tandem, because of my new sport...
(Some of them even wanna do it with me, but yea, you know that question... They just don't get the difference between the driver licence and the one for skydiving.)

Now the question: What would you do to check if the tandem staff of a DZ is doing their job? Look for old gear? Some labels like this F-111 you talked about?

[Harksaw 0]

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>Strong 520s were the worst because they opened hard even with the best of packers.

I hated those 11 cell monsters. Had an extra set of grommets on the slider to encourage tension knots, too, if I recall correctly.

The new Strong canopies I've seen have six grommets, having two extras for the brake lines. Is this the design you're talking about? Would you say the sliders on their new canopies encourage tension knots more than four grommet sliders?

Does anyone know why they went with 6 grommet sliders on their new canopies?

__________________________________________________
I started skydiving for the money and the chicks. Oh, wait.

[riggerrob 558]

I prefer tandem sliders with six grommets because it reduces friction on steering lines. I even sewed extra grommets on a few old SET-400 sliders to reduce friction/fraying.

[tbrown 26]

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I have found that it depends greatly on gear maintenance. Back when we were still using the F-111 tandem mains, we got to a point where 1 in 20 jumps was a mal; the mains just got so worn out that they weren't opening well any more. We replaced the mains and the problem went away.

That's an interesting statistic, as it would seem to imply the dropzone let the situation to get bad enough to count that many malfunctions in the first place. I'd hate to have to defend a lawsuit on the basis of a waiver when an operation knew beforehand it was running a 5% malfunction rate on gear intended for tourists. So when the new main canopies arrived, where did the old ones go ? Into the reserve containers ? (If that sounds cynical, there are stories circulating about dropzones where ragged out mains have exactly been rotated out of sight as reserves.) It's just unacceptable to even get a rate like that high enough to count.

Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

[billvon 2,400]

>That's an interesting statistic, as it would seem to imply the dropzone
>let the situation to get bad enough to count that many malfunctions in
> the first place.

Well, as I recall, the sequence was:

1. There were a few mals. Everyone blamed the new packers.

2. There were a few more. Cries of "the canopies are bad!" began to be heard from the instructors. A master rigger inspected them and said they were OK. Several were relined.

3. We got a new packer. Mals went down a bit.

4. Mals started going up again. "Get a new packer!" we said again.

5. The chief instructor (also a rigger) started to pack them himself. Mals went down again, thus "proving" it was all the packer's fault, and it wasn't the canopies.

6. They started going up again, even with him packing the canopies. The chief tandem instructor started bugging the DZO about buying new canopies.

7. The canopies got ordered. Meanwhile we got yet another new packer, who wasn't that good. That's when we had the 1 in 20 mals; not good packer + old canopies.

8. We finally got the new canopies in and the problems went away.

[riggerrob 558]

.... So when the new main canopies arrived, where did the old ones go ? Into the reserve containers ? (If that sounds cynical, there are stories circulating about dropzones where ragged out mains have exactly been rotated out of sight as reserves.)

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Funny!

We used to do the exact opposite at Hemet, California.
When our reserves had 20 jumps, we used to re-line them with Dacron and stuff them into main containers.
Mind you, that was back in the day when all tandem canopies were made of F-111 fabric.

Our main malfunction rate depended upon who packed them. Only the best of packers could get consistent openings.