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Chris-Ottawa

Had my first taste of baglock today...

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Just feel like sharing because as many times as people hear it, when it happens to you, you really realize that a high speed mal leaves you with very little time and you need to be prepared for it.

2 way freefly jump, planned breakoff at 5k, deploy at 3.5.

Uneventful jump, dumped at 3.5 as planned, normal feeling as the PC reached extension, lines reached extension, then....freefall. Looked over my shoulder, saw a fully extended PC and bag. Said "F*CK", then looked at my handles. Put a hand on each, looked at my cutaway, then exactly at that point, I felt opening shock. Let go of my handles, looked up, saw my canopy deploying with several linetwists. Kicked one out during the snivel, and thankfully, the rest were able to be kicked out as my Katana flew nicely. Looked at altimeter...1540ft. Landed uneventfully.

So, I made a couple of decisions, which can be turned into mistakes in my eyes. Nothing hugely major, but learning mistakes:

1)I should have looked at my alti before attempting to kick out of the twists. For all I know, I could have been at 1000ft, only to find out that it starts spinning, then I chop at 800 ft... or less.

2) I read all about, was fully aware and actually practised the "squeeze" your risers versus "pull" them apart to get out of linetwists. Didn't even cross my mind when it was happening and I instinctively pulled apart.

I guess I just thought it was interesting to see that in a moment of stress, you don't always react the way you expect to and that time passes MUCH quicker than you expect. A great lesson to learn from.
"When once you have tasted flight..."

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Sounds like you made the right decisions enough to walk away and were heads up enough to realize what was happening. It also sounds like you realize what you would've done different. A good learning experience. Congrats on handling it and coming out rather unscathed. ;)

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I should have looked at my alti before ....

I guess I just thought it was interesting to see that in a moment of stress, you don't always react the way you expect to and that time passes MUCH quicker than you expect. A great lesson to learn from.



Which is exactly why I hammer the hell out of people when they talk time in emergency situations. It's altitude that concerns us, not time. Adrenalin is a great drug . It's legal and it's free...the problem is that adrenalin overdose kills skydivers when they are thinking in terms of time.

Good stuff walking away and posting so others could learn.
My reality and yours are quite different.
I think we're all Bozos on this bus.
Falcon5232, SCS8170, SCSA353, POPS9398, DS239

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Small regular elastics all around, including locking stows. Never double wrap. Canopy is lined with 500 HMA if you're curious, so the stows are not overly tight.

Edit: I should also say that I did 2 other jumps after this, one on another set of gear, and when I felt a bit more relaxed, one more on this same set. Worked as it always had the last 200+ times. Nothing looked out of place, no broken elastics, no line burn, nothing.
"When once you have tasted flight..."

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The fact that you are self criticising your decisions and actions indicates that your awareness is at a level that allows in depth recall during high stress events. I have noticed that my actions during malfunctions later in my jumping career have met much less with my approval than those earlier. It has occurred to me that this is primarily due to my ability to recall more critically my actions than before.

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Uneventful jump, dumped at 3.5 as planned, normal feeling as the PC reached extension, lines reached extension, then....freefall. Looked over my shoulder, saw a fully extended PC and bag. Said "F*CK", then looked at my handles. Put a hand on each, looked at my cutaway, then exactly at that point, I felt opening shock. Let go of my handles, looked up, saw my canopy deploying with several linetwists. Kicked one out during the snivel, and thankfully, the rest were able to be kicked out as my Katana flew nicely. Looked at altimeter...1540ft. Landed uneventfully.

1) I should have looked at my alti before attempting to kick out of the twists. For all I know, I could have been at 1000ft, only to find out that it starts spinning, then I chop at 800 ft... or less.



First, the baglock had to eat up a lot of your altitude before it cleared. Second, you really should have checked your altimeter as soon as you saw the line twists. USPA says chop it if it's not good by 1800 ft, personally I set my hard deck at 2 grand.

I only say this because I once opened my Pilot at 2 grand with a bunch of line twists and proceeded to kick out of them. As I kicked, the loading shifted and the canopy started a wicked spin. I stupidly persisted, knowing I could clear it, which I did - at 1200 ft. I was so angry with myself that I went and confessed what I had done to the DZ Mgr and we had a talk about it.

Some three years later, I had a similar line twist. But this time I checked my alti, saw about 2200ft and made up my mind that if it wasn't cleared by 1800 - or started to spin at all - that I was pulling my handles. Got it cleared just a few inches below 2 grand, and knowing that I was in control of the situation and not the other way around.

The altitude above you is useless.

Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

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thanks for posting this. I don't get on here much, but when I do I'm always glad to read threads like this.

last weekend I had my first "near-mal"...dumped at ~4.5 (I'm a baby and like to open high) and didn't immediately feel an opening shock. within probably 2 seconds I had my hands on my handles - only to then feel my big, beautiful canopy slowly sniveling open above me. I'm still not sure what happened, but that is the closest I've been to a cutaway since I've been jumping, and I am just so proud of myself for being so prepared to cutaway. I know it sounds stupid, but I've always been so scared of having to deal with that, and always pretty uncertain what my actual reaction would be, no matter how much I pep talk myself on the ground. I often have weird/bad dreams about my canopy...a lot of times the only thing that comes out of the bag (with lines) is beach towel or an obese man's old ratty tshirt (seriously) - both very hard to land.

anyhew, long story short, thanks for the story and the accompanying lessons.

p.s. can you expound upon the squeezing vs. pulling? I've never heard this.

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I often have weird/bad dreams about my canopy...a lot of times the only thing that comes out of the bag (with lines) is beach towel or an obese man's old ratty tshirt (seriously) - both very hard to land.




This reminds me of the scene from "Who framed Roger Rabbit", when he's falling off a building and asks Bugs Bunny for a "spare"... he hands him a bag and finds out its a spare Acme tire. LOL.

Mickey Mouse: "aww poor fella"
bugs bunny: "Yea, ain't I a stinker!"

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...and I am just so proud of myself for being so prepared to cutaway. I know it sounds stupid, but I've always been so scared of having to deal with that, and always pretty uncertain what my actual reaction would be,...



You just found out one of the great truths of skydiving -- when the chips are down, you WILL do what you've been trained to do.
I'm a jumper. Even though I don't always have money for jumps, and may not ever own a rig again, I'll always be a jumper.

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Hey Slappy,

Here's the thread about the pull vs squeeze method. It make COMPLETE sense because the canopy is fighting to get the linetwists out, and by puling them apart, you're really only countering what the canopy is trying to do.

http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=3657394;search_string=A%20better%20way%20out%20of%20line%20twist!;#3657394
"When once you have tasted flight..."

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Brian Germain introduced me to the grab the risers pull them straight and then push them together technique for line twists....not a major issue on a bit canopy since things appear to go slower for me than some of you guys with the huge wing loads.

What was the cause of the back lock? And if there a good rule of thumb for a new person to remember when packing so as to prevent such a problem? Other than keeping ones lines clean and organized?
Thank you.
Life through good thoughts, good words, and good deeds is necessary to ensure happiness and to keep chaos at bay.

The only thing that falls from the sky is birdshit and fools!

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Hey man,

I checked out my rig afterwards, couldn't find anything. I did another jump on it about an hour later and it worked as expected. I didn't change or "fix" anything prior to this next jump, not even replace an elastic.

I can only surmise the following happening:

1) A single line, or potentially a bunch got wrapped around a stow that hadn't unstowed yet, essentially locking it in. This cleared when the bag tumbled/spun enough to clear it.

or

2) Maybe a line got stuck inside of a grommet and again, cleared when it rotated enough to change the direction of pull. That being said, the grommets are pretty tight against the bag.

I'm sure there's a million other possibilities, but I'll never know now.
"When once you have tasted flight..."

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..a robot camera that you toss out with you when you jump...follows you around the sky like a roomba.




Funny you say that:

Actually there is a vid out there of a test jumper for Daedalus who has a nasty spinning mal followed by a temporary main-reserve entanglement. His gopro got knocked off early in the sequence, and while it tumbles in freefall, on every revolution it keeps on picking up a glimpse of the jumper, who is descending under his mals at about the same speed as a freefalling gopro...

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riggers:

what are the known posible causes for bag locks on main chutes, and how likly are they on reserve deployments assuming no main reserve entanglment? in refference to the main again, are they significantly less likly on a magnetic stowless d bag?

thank you!

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for some reason im not able to edit my post, and reading it now it seems a bit impolite, so just posting to add that any knowledgeable info regarding my questions would be greatly appriciated, as is your time.

could just be my politness related ocd, if so, my polite apologies ;)

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Our collapsible pilot chutes need to be mantained on a regular basis.

Every time the kill line collapses the pc it generates heat which in turn causes the line to shrink (just a little on each jump). Over time and jumps this shrinkage causes the pc to be less effective because it's not fully inflated creating less drag.

This is often the cause for our slow deployments but because it happens so incrementally over time, we don't always notice it.

It's also often the culprate for our line twists. The longer it takes for our canopy to get out of the bag the more time for the bag to dance around and start a line twist.

It doesn't take much effort or cost for a rigger to replace your kill line on your pilot chute.

And while your thinking about it why don't you darken the green or blue color in your kill line window.

Remember it this way children............... just like in the bedroom..... shrinkage is never a good thing.
Be the canopy pilot you want that other guy to be.

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I have to agree with what Sandy said, but would add that in this case, my guess is that you forgot to cock the pilot chute.
A good pilot chute will give enough drag to take you from "belly to earth" to pretty much upright.
If you had to look over your shoulder to see this, there was not the normal drag from the pilot chute.
When you brought your hands in and looked down at your handles, you went head down and accelerated. The additional speed is what finally gave the deflated pilot chute enough drag to open the bag.
I've had both a complete bag-lock after dumping my pilot chute to try to clear a horseshoe and the kind of delayed bag opening you describe, and the difference in what the pilot chute drag did to my body position was very obvious. In the second case, mine also opened just after I brought in my hands and was starting to look at handles.
This is the paradox of skydiving. We do something very dangerous, expose ourselves to a totally unnecesary risk, and then spend our time trying to make it safer.

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how likly are (baglocks) on reserve deployments assuming no main reserve entanglment?




Short and Sweet: Exceedingly unlikely.

The sport reserve deployment bag, called the freebag (because it is not attached to the parachute) typically has the lines stowed in two locking bights and the remainder of the line stowed within a pouch on the freebag. The locking bights are typically made using a single large loop of bungee-type elastic that is routed through a channel and each end sticks out through a grommet making a small loop.

The dynamic forces of even a low-speed deployment (ie, cutaway to reserve deployment) will be enough to extract the lines and strip the bag from the parachute.

You can read about it here
"Even in a world where perfection is unattainable, there's still a difference between excellence and mediocrity." Gary73

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