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Scary Horseshoe Mal

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how can it be "bumped on exit" ?? frickin' too long of a loop...



Not neccesarily. If you saw the way he rotated to get in the door, he swung his rig toward the edge of the door, not toward the center. Always swing your rig toward the center, with your body facing the door frame.

Then he was too far back in the door with his rig right against the frame. It doesn't look like there was contact while standing there, but on the exit he does move rearward as he leaves, and I'm willing to bet the pin was dislodged at that time. The proper move would have been to keep your rig clear of the door frame, and exit outwards, not rearwards.

Even with a correct length closing loop, you can dislodge your pin with the right (wrong) move, or combination of moves.

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with the pin protection offered by his rig I seriously doubt that a proper loop would let the pin out, even by swinging, kicking, rubbing or telekinesing the rig.

I would love to have video of such things.

Many people AFFIRM their loops are short enough/too short already. I can often shorten it by an inch, by using the same packjob and a proper closing technique (and without excessive strength)
scissors beat paper, paper beat rock, rock beat wingsuit - KarlM

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Scary horseshoe mal? What, as opposed to the warm and fuzzy ones? :P

The video shows how well pocketed the main bag can be. It took quite a while after exit before the main came out of the container. It didn't happen until the sitflyer went briefly on his back.

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with the pin protection offered by his rig I seriously doubt that a proper loop would let the pin out, even by swinging, kicking, rubbing or telekinesing the rig.



Pin protection and loop length are not related. Take a rig with a tight closing loop, and open the pin cover flap. Even with a tight loop, it does not take that much force to pull the pin from the loop.

When you look at in terms of the force a jumper could apply while moving around for a climbout, or during an actual exit, even a properly adjusted loop is nowhere near tight enough to hold the pin fast.

The purpose of the loop is not to hold the pin against all comers, it's to hold it secure enough that it will hold tight against the flapping of some loose bridle (if some should get free) and help to prevent a horseshoe, but aside from that, the loop's purpose is to allow the pin to come out.

So when you jam your rig into the door frame, or anything really, hard enough to open your pin cover flap, you run the risk of dislodging the pin from even the tightest of closing loops.

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Not neccesarily. If you saw the way he rotated to get in the door, he swung his rig toward the edge of the door, not toward the center. Always swing your rig toward the center, with your body facing the door frame.



+1!
That is why RW instruction is required on the way to your license in Germany. And one of the first and most important things is how to safely get out the door and/or set up an exit. I always practise this with students on the mock-up. It's not only you might "bump" your flap or pin, you may also dislodge or even pull out your pilot chute etc.
The sky is not the limit. The ground is.

The Society of Skydiving Ducks

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with the pin protection offered by his rig I seriously doubt that a proper loop would let the pin out, even by swinging, kicking, rubbing or telekinesing the rig.



I agree with you that Wings has a solid pin cover flap. However, after watching the video for the second time I saw that the pin cover flap is closed in the plane, but it's open when the guy goes to "sit", which makes the scenario described by Dave, very much possible. I haven't seen many Wings pin cover flaps being open on the ground after the jump.
A long loop would definitely "help" though.


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Many people AFFIRM their loops are short enough/too short already. I can often shorten it by an inch, by using the same packjob and a proper closing technique (and without excessive strength)



A guy brought his rig for a repack some months ago. While I lifted the rig from the box, the Dbag fell off. I could close that rig with my fingers only. Without a pull up cord. The loop was 8 cm too long. The guy said that he had about 30 jumps with this loop length B|
The scary thing is that when we have a rig like that for I+R, we shorten the loop and we talk with the jumper. And then during the next I+R we find the loop being lengthen again. Some people listen, some don't.....I guess we could use this video as a example of "what could possibly goes wrong"
"My belief is that once the doctor whacks you on the butt, all guarantees are off" Jerry Baumchen

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The scary thing is that when we have a rig like that for I+R, we shorten the loop and we talk with the jumper. And then during the next I+R we find the loop being lengthen again. Some people listen, some don't.....I guess we could use this video as a example of "what could possibly goes wrong"



Trim off the excess tail of the loop (keeping enough to ensure the knot doesn't slip);)
"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
I'm an asshole, and I approve this message

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I hadn't noticed how hard he went to the door to open the pin cover. Pretty hard to do on a Wings. He was hard enough.... What happened to protecting the gear ??



Would be easier if the cover flap was modified IAW http://www.skydivewings.com/pdf/wings_midflap_update.pdf but still the jumper should be more cautious of that life saving gear on his back. [:/]
"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
I'm an asshole, and I approve this message

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I'm the jumper in the video. Yeah, definitely a lot of mistakes caused by a lot of things including rushing to catch the load which prevented me from getting a proper gear check by someone else, complacency, not paying attention to my pin in the plane, etc. I can assure you that from the time the plane took off I felt something strange about the whole jump, and even told the guy who did the video that in the plane while ascending to altitude. I learned a lot and I hope other people who see this video do as well.

I can guarantee it isn't too long of a closing loop. I shortened the hell out of that thing from what my rigger gave me and have actually been told it may be too short. As you can tell in the video I'm not a small guy and I have to put a hell of a lot of force into the pull-up cord when closing it. I can't say, however, the pin was seated completely due to my lack of a proper gear check and it had been a week since my last jump. I had just shown up at the DZ and had about 10 min get registered for the boogie, geared up, and to the plane. Hindsight being 20/20, I should have skipped it and waited for the next load and taken my time. I am grateful I was away from the plane before shit hit the fan and didn't put anyone else in harms way. What happened to me, I deserved, but not everybody else that could have been put at risk from it, as well.

The malfunction I experienced was that during the horseshoe, the bridle and pilot chute came up between the lines and after my main opened and slider came down, the pilot chute wrapped around the slider and lines on the right side. The slider came about 90% down causing the bridle to be pulled down very tightly collapsing the rear-center of the canopy. I was pretty much flying a bow-tie shaped canopy. I was able to hold a straight heading, but that is about it. I let the canopy maneuver itself to point towards a big open field then held it straight and rode it down to about 3k before cutting as I had no chance of making a decent landing.

So before you go condemning me for my actions, trust me, it definitely changed the way I am going to approach skydiving from now on and from this one incident I have learned a million things. I know some of you have your D-license and are hoping to just tear into me, but before you do, be honest with yourself and think if you have ever rushed to catch a load and skipped a step or two of the things you learned during AFF. I just happened to be the unlucky asshole that it caught me and am more grateful to be alive than you can imagine.

Blue Skies

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Yo !

a) Congrats on surviving / not needing a very expensive helicopter flight
b) Thank you for posting your account. It's very refreshing to know the truth from the horses mouth, instead of having to speculate wildly as it seems that most of the time anyone with info seems extremely tight lipped.

[like]

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Thanks for your feedback and congrats on your chop. Did you find out how you managed to get that flap open ? As a Wings owner I would like to learn (yes, even by someone with less jumps/time, you still have some more experience). Also congrats on having a decent sized loop and sorry for implying the contrary.

Yes I also did rush jumps, and regret some of them.
scissors beat paper, paper beat rock, rock beat wingsuit - KarlM

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I'm not a small guy and I have to put a hell of a lot of force into the pull-up cord when closing it.



Is your loop that tight because you have a container a bit small for the canopy?

Some people use brute force on the pull-up to get the loop through instead of getting each flap mated tightly into place one at a time - they do it all at once after threading through all the flaps, and that takes a lot more force.

An overly tight closing loop has no extra benefit, and can cause problems.
People are sick and tired of being told that ordinary and decent people are fed up in this country with being sick and tired. I’m certainly not, and I’m sick and tired of being told that I am

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I do one flap at a time. And my canopy is the maximum size recommended by Wings for the container size, so that does make it a little tighter. If I'm not mistaken, an extra tight closing would more likely cause a pilot chute in tow, not a premature deployment. I'm having a different rigger put the whole thing back together than the one who assembled it the first time, so I will make sure to get their opinion on what I should do about the closing loop.

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I do one flap at a time. And my canopy is the maximum size recommended by Wings for the container size, so that does make it a little tighter. If I'm not mistaken, an extra tight closing would more likely cause a pilot chute in tow, not a premature deployment. I'm having a different rigger put the whole thing back together than the one who assembled it the first time, so I will make sure to get their opinion on what I should do about the closing loop.



Actually, believe it or not, as long as your pilot chute is worth a damn, you can close that rig as tight as you can (not using positive leverage devices) and I bet your container will still open fine. ;) Test it by closing it as tight as you want and trying to pick up the container by the bridle. I think you'll be surprised how little force it takes for the curved pin to do its job.

No need to have another rigger disassemble and reassemble the entire rig, the bulk is changed during the repack.
"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
I'm an asshole, and I approve this message

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Aside from the obvious pin protection issue discussed in this thread...

Question... I'm no rigger but I always like a learning experience. So here goes...

I usually pack my PC according to Brian Germain's methods (pulling the center line down prior to folding, also a 3rd check on the ground for a properly cocked PC).

I have been told, by BG himself if I'm not mistaken (this was many years ago when I flew 2 of his airlocked canopies), that packing your PC this way will allow the PC to be extracted if you have a horseshoe malfunction.

I've tested it on the ground (albeit the force extracting the bag is much greater in the air I would believe): extracting the bag first, the PC follows out as cleanly as possible. Preventing a nasty total mal.

Of course, YMMV and packing in such a way doesn't guarantee anything. I trust BG's experience and learning lesson.

Here is the video, recommended watch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axCeYlY_6io
"Fail, fail again. Fail better."
-Samuel Beckett

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Thanks for posting.

Don't be so cool that you don't get a pin check before exit. I didn't bother with an in plane pin check for many jumps until I was at an airspeed camp and watched the airspeed team all give each other pin checks.

If these folks with 10's of thousands of jumps get a pin check in the plane every single time why am I not doing it?

Changed my outlook and have not made a jump in the last 600+ jumps without getting a pin check at 9k then making extra sure not to move around in any manner that might affect the pin.

P.S. if your on the plane you should be ready to fucking exit the plane. Hate it when people get on the plane with their shit loose even my Friends. Tell them if shit happens and they are in front of me they are exiting exactly how they are as I'm not waiting for them to gear up.

MAKE EVERY DAY COUNT
Life is Short and we never know how long we are going to have. We must live life to the fullest EVERY DAY. Everything we do should have a greater purpose.

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about pinchecks :
do you think that in that case a pincheck would have helped ? like right at the door ?



It wouldn't have hurt.

Really, pushing a curved pin out is _extremely_ difficult. The curve makes it almost impossible if the pin the properly set in initially.
Remster

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