My 1st Reserve Ride

[SkyJeaux 0]

So, I've had my first reserve ride on this Sunday, the 24th.

So I came up to Pepperell to jump the CASA at the New England Boogie. Boy they are nice people. Great DZ.

So anyway, I did the last jump of the day on the CASA, did a high speed pass, which was great. Fun to exit at 250 knots. We did an 8 way and broke off at 4.5K. Tracked off to around 4K, waved off and deployed.

And had the HARDEST opening of my short career. Slammed my face down against my chest, just about bloodied my lip. Looked up to a blown out center cell and broken lines on the right hand side and immediately started spiraling, really hard really fast it seemed. The first hand accounts from the ground said it sounded like a shotgun when my canopy opened. Starting screaming "F**K, F**K" as I grabbed my cutaway handle, looked at my reserve handle and yanked. Takes a lot of force to cut away when you are in a hard spiral. Damn.

Was reaching to pull the reserve handle when the white reserve opened over my head. Most beautiful site to be seen. Dropped my cutaway handle like a dumbass and watched my trash float away into an especially lovely grove of trees. Never to be found again.

Landed my reserve, grateful and pissed off all at the same time. I went back today to try to find my trash, never did locate it. So now I'm out freebag, reserve pilot chute, main d-bag, main canopy and main pilot chute and main risers. . Maybe it'll turn up, but probably not in a jumpable condition and probably not this year.

I really don't recall doing anything different on my pack job. Never packed on grass before, but I don't see that having an impact. Potentially my slider could have moved, but I don't recall that either. No, the slider wasn't collapsed. I checked that. And I wasn't still tracking. Was just like any other of my 40 some odd pack jobs. My canopy had some age on it, > 1000 jumps, so perhaps that contributed to the fabric failure, but not the explosive opening.

I'm posting this just to have it as a matter of record and to publicly thank the following individuals:

Mike Gruwell at Chuting Star - Without his outstanding reserve packing / repacking skills, I would not be posting this now.

Andy @ The Farm - Thank you for all the training and EP's we went over. When the time came, I was good to go.

All my instructors and coaches @ The Farm - Thank you for making sure I knew what the hell I was doing. Good to know you can save your own ass and are more pissed off about damaging / losing gear than a potential fatal situation. I am grateful that I walked away from my event only paying for gear, not for metal in parts of my body or worse.

I'm more than slightly drunk, so please excuse my run on. I just wanted to get this out here.

I'm looking to get back up in the air soon, and now am in the hunt for a new 220 canopy. :) Good times. And god, do I owe BEER now. Too much!!!!

BSBD

[JohnRich 4]

Congrats for handling the situation.

Quote

We did an 8 way and broke off at 4.5K. Tracked off to around 4K, waved off and deployed.

I hope you typed some number wrong there. 500 feet vertically is only about 3 seconds, and that's not nearly enough tracking time for an 8-way break-off.

[SkyJeaux 0]

Yeah well, now that I'm sober this morning. :)

Broke off at 4.5, tracked out to 3.5 for deployment. And well, our 8 way ended up only having 4 of us. We got strung out all across the sky from that CASA.

Logic and memory aren't so good after free beer and shots!

[DSE 3]

I was on that same load; you got picked up by the guy who was out looking for me after my chop. I couldn't find my trash either, as it was too dark once we were on the ground, but I had followed my freebag as far as I could, it landed in a tree in the middle of the swamp across the street from the DZ.
We went back the next morning to look again, and found my main on someone's back deck. It was MUCH further to the northwest than we'd expected, based on the winds. My mal was a baglock; yours floated more slowly down (I watched it for a moment when I was under reserve). I'd ask folks to look further northwest from where you thought you were. You might also ask Reid for a flyover in his 22 heli, or have the DZ overfly in the 182. Should be fairly easy to spot from the air.
My freebag is stuck in a tree, it can't be retrieved with anything but a helicopter or potato gun with a hook on it. Lurch offered to try to climb the tree (he's an upright monkey), but the tree is too big around, too mossy, and in the middle of the swamp.

Glad you made it down safely, it was dark when we exited the aircraft.
and now you've got a nice story to tell.
It surely was a fun boogie...

[DescensionX 0]

I'm a relative newbie, so take what i say with a grain of salt. But it seems to me like there might have been a few too many risk factors going on here.

1 - New drop zone
2 - Never packed on grass
3 - Fast jump run pass (250 knots!)
4 - An 8 way RW dive (with 68 jumps!)
5 - A night jump

That seems like too much to tackle with only 68 jumps under your belt, but that is just my hunble opinion. I would not have made that dive.

I'm glad you are okay. When you have multiple risk factors all adding to each other, that is a recipe for trouble.

[millertime24 8]

2 chops on the same load? Thats almost unheard of. Ive only actually witnessed 1 chop ever.

Muff #5048

[mirage62 0]

I believe at a Perris POP's thing a few years ago we 2-4 cut aways on one load....but there were about 100 people in the air.

Kevin Keenan is my hero, a double FUP, he does so much with so little

[DSE 3]

Quote

I'm a relative newbie, so take what i say with a grain of salt. But it seems to me like there might have been a few too many risk factors going on here.

1 - New drop zone (He'd been jumping there for a few days)
2 - Never packed on grass (Likely made no diff, as long as lines are kept taut)
3 - Fast jump run pass (250 knots!) (No, jump run wasn't 250kts)
4 - An 8 way RW dive (with 68 jumps!) (If the others on the jump are heads-up and aware of his skills, this isn't a big deal at all. Had my StarCrest earned by jump 45)
5 - A night jump (it was late dusk, not a night jump)

.

I doubt any of the above had anything to do with a blown cell. Deploying in a track would be one potential, non-collapsed slider, slider not all the way up, body position...they did get a 4 way going, so they clearly were flying at "normal" speeds on their bellies.
Still....it's very good to consider all potential links in the chain that led to a hard opening/chop.