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I just wondered if there were any folk who had ever jumped an intentional cutaway rig, who after the planned cutaway went on to have a mal that required another cutaway?

It was started but a conversation on risk statistics. and I just wondered if anyone had experiences this or knew of anyone else who had!

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At PIA this year, one of the presenters (IIRC it was Jeff Johnston from UPT) showed video of a double mal that a test jumper had on a tertiary setup when doing some Skyhook tests. So it happens, even to the pros who do intentional cutaways regularly.

I'd imagine, though, that the odds of a malfunction on your second main on a three-canopy setup are similar to the general odds of having a malfunctioning main on a standard setup. Maybe a hair lower if the pack jobs are more thoughtful because of the increased complexity.
"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

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I can answer that!

I had a normal flight of the canopy to be cutaway, but when I went to release it, only one side released (seperate cutaway handles on each side, right side misrouted). Big whipping, spinning mal, cutaway second canopy, hoping to clear both canopies as the cutaway canopy risers attached to the main risers. As I pulled the cutaway handle the first canopy released and I went back into freefall. Opened reserve with all the lines from the second main all over me, and the risers hit me in the face. I never had a chance to deploy and remove the second main, so its bag was still in the tray with all the lines unstowed.

The scariest part was that the spinning had moved the cutaway handle around and behind/under my right armpit, so I had to use my left hand to cutaway. The reserve handle was just above my belly button and easily removed with my right hand. It's shocking how much stretch will be induced into your gear with all that torque. Nothing was where I left it.

Any intentional cutaway, no matter how well thought out and planned still poses additional risks. Sit on the ground with the gear and see how many different ways you can screw the pooch.

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I am new to this. How can you cut away your reserve? Are there rigs out there with more than 2 chutes?



Yes, there are rigs that are set up for intentional cutaways with three canopies. They're used in special situations, not as everyday rigs. One common use is by test jumpers who are testing components on a rig or a new / modified canopy design.
"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

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I know of someone who cut away the wrong canopy first so when they cut away the first one and then deployed the second one, the second one went bye bye.



:)
I never had a double mal and only had 1 problem in about 200 cutaways I did for the RWS. The only time I didn't do ALL my own rigging. Some one, who I thought knew better, didn't know what the dacron loop behind the large steering line guide ring was for and used the "cats eye" in the steering line to set the brakes on the canopy I was going to cut away. Real malfunction, real cutaway, and because the vidio man wasn't set up yet, we got to, I mean we had to do it again. ;)
Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossilbe before they were done.
Louis D Brandeis

Where are we going and why are we in this basket?

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>as the cutaway canopy risers attached to the main risers.

I have not liked this system ever since Rob Harris was killed during a stunt due to a problem with a rig like this. Two independent risers, with two independent releases, make a lot more sense from a fault-tree perspective.

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Not a big fan of it either. But it was the best system we had available at the time.

We used to have rigs wth attachment points for extra D rings, but not any more. Then we had the issue of being direct deployed out of the plane, like an IAD student.

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>as the cutaway canopy risers attached to the main risers.

I have not liked this system ever since Rob Harris was killed during a stunt due to a problem with a rig like this. Two independent risers, with two independent releases, make a lot more sense from a fault-tree perspective.



Please elaborate, as I have used the attachment to my main risers. Only on direct deployment, but I find this the least likely to interfere with the normal deployment after cutaway.
Irony: "the History and Trivia section hijacked by the D.B. Cooper thread"

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>Please elaborate . . .

Failure scenario:

You deploy the intentional cutaway canopy. It deploys normally. Now you pull the MAIN cutaway handle instead of the intentional cutaway handle. The main risers disconnect (with the intentional canopy still attached) and pulls the lines out of your main container. Your main container does not open, since the pin has not been pulled.

You are now hanging face down (or upside down) from your main container with an unlandable main high above you. What do you do?

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>Please elaborate . . .

Failure scenario:

You deploy the intentional cutaway canopy. It deploys normally. Now you pull the MAIN cutaway handle instead of the intentional cutaway handle. The main risers disconnect (with the intentional canopy still attached) and pulls the lines out of your main container. Your main container does not open, since the pin has not been pulled.

You are now hanging face down (or upside down) from your main container with an unlandable main high above you. What do you do?




This sounds like someone that shouldn't have done an intentional cutaway, and hadn't prepared well enough before the jump.

I've done 45 intentional cutaways +/- , and 30 years ago I did them with the belly wart and using my reserve as my 2nd main. I've also used the new system with main rings attached to my main risers with a cutaway handle on my chest strap. I would say this system is the safest "I've" used.

BS
Irony: "the History and Trivia section hijacked by the D.B. Cooper thread"

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This sounds like someone that shouldn't have done an intentional cutaway, and hadn't prepared well enough before the jump.



Yeah, like world champion Rob Harris when he died in 1995 with that kind of setup.

Edit:
Oops I missed the earlier reference to Rob that was already posted, so I'll revise this post to add some helpful detail and be less sarcastic.

Joe Jennings describes the rig:

Quote

The cut away rig was a simple design.
Basically, the main risers were equipped with extra 3-rings allowing a third
canopy to be used. The third canopy was to be D-bagged with a static line
from a cessna. An additional cut away handle was located high on the main
lift web above the chest strap. Between us, we had used the system over ten
times and it worked flawlessly. Once the third canopy was cut away, the rig
was like the systems we'd practice with every day.



Rob pulled the regular cutaway handle instead of the one for the 3rd canopy he was under, thus pulling the risers of the regular main partially out of the pack. He then chopped the 3rd canopy properly, and struggled to get the reserve out. That may have been due to his costume getting in the way, so it is a different factor, even if the wrong handle choice set events in motion.

He did get the reserve out, but late, hitting at line stretch. Witnesses suggest the flapping main risers had entangled with the reserve bridle for anything from a moment to a couple seconds.

Rob had not deployed the cut away main canopy still in its pack.

So even if in general the risks may be considered manageable with that sort of 3-canopy system, there are some hazards that can be avoided by completely separating the 1st and 2nd main canopy systems.

When Joe Jennings reported on when he watched Rob fall to his death, Joe admitted he himself had also pulled the wrong cutaway handle once a few days before with the same system.

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>Please elaborate . . .

Failure scenario:

You deploy the intentional cutaway canopy. It deploys normally. Now you pull the MAIN cutaway handle instead of the intentional cutaway handle. The main risers disconnect (with the intentional canopy still attached) and pulls the lines out of your main container. Your main container does not open, since the pin has not been pulled.

You are now hanging face down (or upside down) from your main container with an unlandable main high above you. What do you do?



I had that nearly, only the first main was partially cut away....

Treat it like any horseshoe malfunction and try and remove what is still attached. Deploy the second main or at least get the pack open by pulling the bridle, not just throwing it out. If all else fails, deploy the reserve into the mess, but at least the main canopy itself is further away!

Not a great answer. That's why the independent risers are a better system.

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How is the 3rd canopy attached to the main risers?

I had thought there would just be another set of risers attached to the large harness ring - side by side risers independently released with separate handles, but that would not explain the description of the 3 canopy pulling the regular main out.
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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In any system you will have two different cutaway handles, so what would preclude someone from pulling the wrong handle in ANY system. The point is, the intentional cutaway main is attached to your actual main risers so that if you pull the wrong cutaway handle, you deploy your actual main as normal and both intentional and actual main go away.

Also, now there is a costume involved in the death of a well known jumper using this system. How about any problems with a straight forward system, planned and executed, and then something unforeseen happens, please post as this would be apples to apples, and I would like to have info like that.
Irony: "the History and Trivia section hijacked by the D.B. Cooper thread"

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Some back/ground/work. (No one ever accused me of being concise.)

You see the pictures of big formations and say, "WOW! Those guys can really skydive." You see a picture of a sufrer. The POV is at water level, half way up the wave with the surfer in the tuve comming at the camera. You say, "WOW! That's some surfer there, alright." Maybe. But the guy behind the camera has had to do a lot more, a lot better to get that shot. Think about it the next time you look at a pictute of a really good skydive or almost any athletic feat. "How did they get that shot?"

When Bill lBooth came up with the idea for the pilot chute with no mesh, a lot of us said, "Wha...?"
I took it up to Pigeon Forge (the only skydiving wind tunnel at the time) and tested it. It had just as much drag as a conventionsl PC and was a lot more stable. No dancing around all over the place. So let's go jump it.

Bill wanted 40 jumps to be vidioed so he got Mike McGowan to do the vidio. We did a couple with Mike behind me when I cutaway but that didn't satisfy Mike or Bill. Mike said, "We'll get out higher and you dock on me. I'll take us to a good place to cutaway and I'll be in a better positon to get the shot."
I said, "Mike, I'm no CRW guy. Are you sure?"
"It's what we have to do to get the shot."

After 12 or 15 jumps like this, I'm staring to get comfortable with docking on him but Mike's having a problem. With my canopy on his back and his feet hooked on the "A" lines, he's having a diffficult time looking down and back with his full face camera helmet. He has a solution. "After you dock on me, get on your brakes and I'll come down your lines to the cascades. I'll put my feet behond the "B" lines, you get off the brakes and I'll go back up. This will put me further back in the cord of your canop and it will be easier to get the shot."
I said, "Mike, are you sure about this? This doesn't seem to be a good idea. You're going to have my canopy all around you before I cutaway and it's likely to get worse after I do. Are you sure?"
"It's what we have to do to get the shot."
"OK. But remember, I'm leaving anyway. You're the one who's going to have deal wiith all that stuff."

We tried it and it worked better than I expected. We did the next 20 or so jumps like that with no problems. And then...

On this jump, Mike wasn't going back up my lines as quickly as normal. Maybe I didn't have my hands as high as I should have but for whatever reason Mike looked up to see where my canopy was. When he did, he wound up sticking his cameras right into my center cell. Now his head is being bent backward and he's yelling for me to get back on the brakes so he can come back down and get his cameras clear of my canopy. He's 12 to 15 feet away and yelling some thing up to the sky. I can't hear what he's saying, just, "UGH ARG RAF GAH." Or some thing like that. I finally, finally get on my brakes to go back up to him to see what he's trying to tell me. That's what needed to happen and instead of carrying on a long converstion we went ahead and finished that jump and the rest of the test jumps without further incident.

I've still got quite a few photos of those jumps and Mike got me in the USPA calindar. July of '86 (I think) right at Nationals when I was running the loft for RWS at Muscogee. I had a lot of people say, "Good picture." I would ALWAYS reply, "Let me tell you what Mike had to do to get the shot..."


Now the test jumps on the "Bridle Deployment Myth", those were just as fun. And again, the guy in the picture is not always the real hero.
Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossilbe before they were done.
Louis D Brandeis

Where are we going and why are we in this basket?

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Any thoughts on this -

My several intentional cutaways were done with a BASE rig worn underneath my skydiving rig and D-Bagged out the door. The BASE rig had a normal cutaway handle with a pullup cord tied to it for visibility in case it slid under the main lift web. Our team used this quite often.
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Re: Niki1's description of his cutaways.

Bob Nixon's (Niki1) Relative Workshop cutaway shot was a classic photo to me when I was just starting jumping. It was a particularly dynamic shot seen in a few back issue Parachutist magazines I bought to see what skydiving was about.

So for the record:

Attached is the full RWS ad talking about their meshless reserve pilot chute (Parachutist Nov. '89), and a closeup of the cutaway photo itself.

Also in the same issue, as part of the reserve buyer's guide article, was a pic of the bridle tests. So maybe Bob can do a writeup on that in a new thread sometime. Photo also attached.


What kind of canopy setup did you have for your tersh, Bob?

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Re: Niki1's description of his cutaways.

Bob Nixon's (Niki1) Relative Workshop cutaway shot was a classic photo to me when I was just starting jumping. It was a particularly dynamic shot seen in a few back issue Parachutist magazines I bought to see what skydiving was about.

So for the record:

Attached is the full RWS ad talking about their meshless reserve pilot chute (Parachutist Nov. '89), and a closeup of the cutaway photo itself.

Bob Nixon cutaway ad - sm.JPG (272 KB)
Bob Nixon cutaway - pic only 2.jpg (272 KB)

Also in the same issue, as part of the reserve buyer's guide article, was a pic of the bridle tests. So maybe Bob can do a writeup on that in a new thread sometime. Photo also attached.

Bob Nixon wide bridle test - sm.jpg (67.5 KB)


What kind of canopy setup did you have for your tersh, Bob?



Wow. That was in '89? Only 22 years ago? It seems like a lot longer than that. Well, like the guy said, "It's not the years, it's the milage." ;)

As best I can remember, :P the tersh was some thing like a Featherlite that I put on a long bridle and in a bag with a pillow handle in an old Jerry Bird Ripaway chest container. The theory was that I could ttear the velcro container open, grab the handle on the bag and fling it out past the problem where it would open in clear air. That was the theory. I'm just as glad I never had to actually try it. :)
Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossilbe before they were done.
Louis D Brandeis

Where are we going and why are we in this basket?

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