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swoopfly

what would you do here?

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so here is a hypothetical situation. just wanting to see what some of your reactions would be. Lets say you make a skydive and deploy your main. On opening you have a bad line twist or line over. Its looks to you that you will have to cutaway. So you peel your handle out of the pouch and right when you start to pull it your canopy clears itself, and now you have a good canopy. But now your cutaway handle is dislodged and not only that but it has been pulled three inches down the cables. Do you keep hanging from your harness and try and land with it or do you cutaway???
if there was one inch from your cable to your riser release would it be safe to keep or a safer idea to cutaway?? just thought i would put this out there for discussion

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When (if) you peel you don't pull yet, and when you pull you PULL so you'd not have the change to recognize a fixed canopy at all. So, doubt very much you'd ever find yourself in a situation like you mentioned...



well lets say you just peel and it was hanging out enough to not be able to easily fit it back in its pouch. would you fly it in with your handle dangling or would you cutaway?

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The reason EPs are drilled into people is so they are second nature. Once you commit to your EPs you should fully commit. As someone above already mentioned you shouldnt find yourself in this situation if you do it correctly. Just commit and be assertive in your EPs.
"If this post needs to be moderated I would prefer it to be completly removed and not edited and butchered into a disney movie" - DorkZone Hero

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the reason i posted this is because i know someone who had a lineover, peeled there handle and it cleared. the person who did this put there handle back in place. i was just curious as to what if you found yourself in that situation and your handle got dislodge and couldent be put back in place. while this is just hypothetical similar situations have happened. it just got me to thinking is all

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When (if) you peel you don't pull yet, and when you pull you PULL so you'd not have the change to recognize a fixed canopy at all. So, doubt very much you'd ever find yourself in a situation like you mentioned...



I totally agree here. VERY little time for anything to happen between my PEEL and PULL.

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well lets say you just peel and it was hanging out enough to not be able to easily fit it back in its pouch. would you fly it in with your handle dangling or would you cutaway?



OK, If that did happen, I would probably look at the risers and see how much cable was still past the loop and if was more than an inch or so, I'd probably fly it in.

With tension on the three ring system the cables aren't likely to "slip out".

Just my $.02, take into consideration that I hate chasing down my "junk" after a cut-away so I might take more of a "chance" than the next person.

Blue Skies,
Jason

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too bad on most of todays risers, specifically the ones with hard inserts it's impossible to know how much cable is actually "in", unless you see the very tip of it sticking out.

I wouldn't want to chance it, but I also never took my time peeling/pulling the cutaway handle - I just yanked that fucker like my life depended on it.

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Once you decide that plan B is in effect, you don't go back to A. That's how a lot of people get hurt.
It's called the Hillbilly Hop N Pop dude.
If you're gonna be stupid, you better be tough.
That's fucked up. Watermelons do not grow on trees! ~Skymama

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Having had a number of cutaways over the years, the amount of time from "Peel" to "Pull" is very, very short. Most people would be so focused on their cutaway handle/locating their reserve handle/fighting pack the panic that they probably wouldn't notice the main behaving better. Besides, the reason you had such a crappy opening may have been masked by the line twist/lineover, you may still have some severe damage to the canopy that has not been noticed. Now you may have a floating reserve handle, wasted time and altitude, and still need to cutaway.

I've seen a few wraps where right as they clear, one of the participants has cutaway! Once you are in that mode, it is very hard to shift out.

I agree with the sentiment of once you have gone to Plan B, that is the plan.

top
Jump more, post less!

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too bad on most of todays risers, specifically the ones with hard inserts it's impossible to know how much cable is actually "in", unless you see the very tip of it sticking out.



I understand what you are saying about the riser inserts but on my Icon there is probably two inches from where the cable goes through the loop to where the hard insert starts so I would be able to see if there were "enough" cable still through the loop or not.

However, there isn't that much distance between the loop and insert on my Mirage so it would be more difficult to determine if "enough" cable is still through the loop.

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I wouldn't want to chance it, but I also never took my time peeling/pulling the cutaway handle - I just yanked that fucker like my life depended on it.



LOL, I totally agree with you there!! Like I said before there is VERY little time from my peel to pull.

I am like you, it's always been pretty much one motion. :D

Blue Skies,
Jason

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I agree with Top and the other posters. I don't see this scenario playing out (although the OP said it has) in my case. Having had a recent cutaway I can tell you I wasn't looking up at my canopy when I intiated my EPs. Once i decided on Plan B I stuck with it. Also, when i go for the reserve I grab that bitch and yank on it like my life depended on it. In my case that is one quick motion. reach down grab pull. i think that it took all of a few seconds. Once you have comitted to Plan B stick with it.
Rodriguez Brother #1626
Dudiest Skydiver #1962
DPH #-2

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so here is a hypothetical situation. just wanting to see what some of your reactions would be. Lets say you make a skydive and deploy your main. On opening you have a bad line twist or line over. Its looks to you that you will have to cutaway. So you peel your handle out of the pouch and right when you start to pull it your canopy clears itself, and now you have a good canopy. But now your cutaway handle is dislodged and not only that but it has been pulled three inches down the cables. Do you keep hanging from your harness and try and land with it or do you cutaway???
if there was one inch from your cable to your riser release would it be safe to keep or a safer idea to cutaway?? just thought i would put this out there for discussion



as everyone else has said, the best way to deal with this is to not get in this situation in the first place, but the one thing i haven't seen in previous responses is that the best way to avoid the situation is to not be so fast on the cutaway trigger in the first place.

For example:

Let's say you make a skydive and deploy your main. On opening you have a bad line twist . Its looks to you that you will have to cutaway. So you...

...squeeze your risers together instead of pull them apart and clear the twists if possible...

Or...

Let's say you make a skydive and deploy your main. On opening you have a line over. Its looks to you that you will have to cutaway. So you...

...pop your brakes and pump them to clear the lineover if possible...

If after taking these steps your canopy does not clear, then put one hand on the reserve ripcord and one hand on the cutaway handle, peel your handle out of the pouch and then yank that puppy as if your life depends on it (which it does), and then pull the reserve ripcord with similar enthusiasm and authority.

But do not be in a big hurry to start yanking handles just because your main doesn't open perfectly clean. Unless you like pulling so low that you can't take a few seconds to think after you open, you have plenty of time for a couple of "pre-emergency procedures" before you go full-tilt boogie on the handles.

And if you do like pulling too low to think, then you better be going fult-tilt boogie on those handles the instant you see a possible bad deployment.

Either way, however, there's really no reason or excuse to get yourself into the situation you describe.

B|

d5533
base44
court-certified expert BASE witness:ph34r:
SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.)

"The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."

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One time, after kicking out of line twist and pulling my risers apart, I noticed that I had dislodged my left cutaway cable to the point of having only one-quarter inch still through the loop. I carefully pulled the cable back up into position until it was tight and landed the canopy.

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IMO if you are breaking the release of the main into two distinct stages, 'peel and pull' you are taking too much time.

You should have your EP's practiced & ingrained enough so that there isn't any hesitation during the implementation.

I don't normally use an RSL, my cut away procedure is to recognize the problem, look at and grab the soft handle with my RIGHT hand and hook my thumb through the reserve D ring with my LEFT.

Knees bent back, toes pointed back, head back and spine arched...punch with the right & as I feel the drop, punch with the left.

It's a practiced and fluid motion that takes about a tenth of the time to do, as it did to read it.

Once my hands are on those handles and my head is going back...WE ARE GOIN' FOR A RESERVE RIDE. ;)




edited to add: 14 cut aways, the first 3 it took two hands to chop...because back then there were two release mechanisms to activate.











~ If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn? ~

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That's happened to me. Admittedly - I have 6000 jumps and 18 cutaways so I'm not so adrenaline pumped about reserve rides anymore as I am just plain annoyed :-) I opened up with a lineover over the right side of my canopy. I held it straight with the left riser while I tried to clear it.

I didn't have any luck and reached down for both my handles. (I was probably a little above 3 grand at this point.) I immediately started a hard spin so I reached back up and grabbed my left rear riser while I got my cutaway handle. Its far easier to find things when not in a violent spin.

I looked up again and still had an issue so started to pull the cutaway. It was however a new rig with very crisp velcro, and I actually had to really consciously work to peel it to get it off. I did that and just before letting go of my left hand to grab the reserve handle, I looked back up and it was all clear and I was flying straight. Woo hoo! I just put my cutaway handle back on the velcro (it had been peeled but not pulled at all) and went on with the skydive.

Would I recommend this to newbies? No. All this only took me a couple hundred feet well above my decision altitude. If I hadn't been hanging on to my left riser to fly straight I would have been hauling ass towards the ground and things might have had to been hurried.

With my left hand keeping the canopy flying straight, while I had a lineover, I wasn't screaming towards the ground and I was well above my decision altitude so I had time to think and work things through.

W

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grab the soft handle with my left hand and hook my thumb through the reserve D ring with my right



Noob question follows:

I just started skydiving , but I haven't seen a rig with the cutaway on the left and the reserve on the right. Is it personal choice as to which side the handles are on, or is that just how left handed people set their rigs up?

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Isn't the procedure "Peel & Pull", essentially a single action, rather than "Peel, Pause & Pull"? If the right procedure is done then this scenario wouldn't occur. But it did, which means initially that the skydiver in question was a.) wrong and b.) fucking lucky. This skydiver created a situation in which (s)he was faced with a question about how to proceed. A good general rule of thumb is to never have a question while skydiving. Most especially at pull time. Answers only, and good, right answers at that. So if the 'pause" portion is part of this sequence, the only way to eliminate the question portion is to complete the pull. Anything else is making it a crap shoot. And as they said years ago, "This ain't no party. This ain't no disco. This ain't no fooling around." Or did I just lose a bunch of you with that one?

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grab the soft handle with my left hand and hook my thumb through the reserve D ring with my right



Noob question follows:

I just started skydiving , but I haven't seen a rig with the cutaway on the left and the reserve on the right. Is it personal choice as to which side the handles are on, or is that just how left handed people set their rigs up?

oops... have ya seen and old guy with bad eyes, big hands and a new crackberry try to post from a moving train....the answer is YES! Ill try to edit that so it makes sense.










~ If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn? ~

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so here is a hypothetical situation. just wanting to see what some of your reactions would be. Lets say you make a skydive and deploy your main. On opening you have a bad line twist or line over. Its looks to you that you will have to cutaway. So you peel your handle out of the pouch and right when you start to pull it your canopy clears itself, and now you have a good canopy. But now your cutaway handle is dislodged and not only that but it has been pulled three inches down the cables. Do you keep hanging from your harness and try and land with it or do you cutaway???
if there was one inch from your cable to your riser release would it be safe to keep or a safer idea to cutaway?? just thought i would put this out there for discussion



Had that happen once...10-12 linetwists that I couldn't get leverage to get out of, but the canopy was stable. I was well above my decision altitude, and peeled...started a slow pull because I had so much time...and all of a sudden it started untwisting. It came all out above my decision altitude and I was able to grab the top of the cutaway cables and pull them back into place and restow/velcro the cutaway handle.

Probably would never find myself in that situation with so much time again...as I've had more than 10 cutaways in 6000 jumps...usually a quick decision/action.

But you can pull the cutaway cables back into position very easily.

Mike
ChutingStar.com

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the reason i posted this is because i know someone who had a lineover, peeled there handle and it cleared.



This makes me ask...
What was he looking at when he initiated his EPs?

I don't know about others, but I do, and teach, eyes on the handles before you start grabbing stuff and eyes on the handles until BOTH are done.

Sounds like he was looking at the canopy instead of his handles.

Anyway...to hypothetically answer your question:
Checking the cables at the locking loop would tell me to go or no go. On a No Go, I'd tuck the handle in behind the MLW and be still and very smooth on the canopy flight.

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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Certainly for a student the rule is probably all or nothing.

I once saw first jump student land after he had a minor mal that cleared, and he had started to pull the SOS handle before that happened.

I was right there as he landed with the handle dangling. One yellow cable was only 1/2 an inch past the loop, on the non-RSL side.

There's a fine line between life and death at times...

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Out of the reserve rides I had I just pulled that shit. If your commited then your commited. If you "peel then pull" then the time between peeling and pulling should be short enough to where the mal should not clear. If it does then work on your second nature responses.

If I was in the situation and had enough altitude (which you should be aware of) and have yellow through the 3-ring loop then just pull that shit back through. If your not comfortable with it, then don't think and just cutaway. If your low enough, thinking can get you killed.
If you're not living on the edge; you're taking up too much room!

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