talk to your instructors! (help a retarded moron)

[PhreeZone 15]

What you are missing here is how the deployment put her into the coma. Was it because she had line twists on the reserve and flew into a building before kicking out or was it because the reserve deployed across her neck and broke it? That is two completely different causes for the coma and either of them could occur with or with out an RSL. There are Cons to an RSL but the Skyhook and other RSL'd tend to have way more Pros then they do cons.

You need to understand the details behind the incidents and not just the surface details or else you end up with arguements like "My friend who is a pilot with thousands of hours told me a Porter crashed, therefore all Porters are unsafe and should be grounded". You need to understand the details behind it like the crash occured since in my example the pilot flew it into the side of a mountian at night while drunk and had on dark sunglasses. With this new info flying in a Porter doesn't seem so bad anymore but it takes looking at all the details of multiple incidents before you can form an educated opinon.

You also need to look at the source you are getting info on. If your source only presents one side of the arguement and can not provide the facts then they are biased and if you only listen to them you will be biased also. At some dropzones certian rigs get bad reputations and everyone on the dropzone hates them. If you ask them for details you get answers like "Joe is the master rigger and he hates them and thats good enough for me". That is not understanding the issues, it is following someone elses opinion and not researching anything and making up your own educated opinion.

For any thing you should be able to create a list of pro and cons and then decide based on the list what your opinion is. If you are unable to figure out Pro's or Con's to something then educate yourself from different sources since the sources you have learned from are not educating you, they are pushing their agenda onto you. If you ever want to become an instructor this is something you should work on with any question a student asks you that is subject to personal opinion - list out for them 4-5 pros for one arguement and 4-5 cons and then go into detail on each one. As you educate the student do not have a bias and let them from their own opinion on the topic.

Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery

Parachutemanuals.com

[mnealtx 0]

Well said - that was the gist of what I was trying to get across to him, but you explained it much better.

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[virgin-burner 1]

mhm, just read up on that incident. RSL or skyhook wouldnt have made a difference anyway probably. it wasnt mentioned if she had one.

dont know why he brought that up. maybe he's just against it as you say.

the jumper in question routed the bridle wrong, deployed, that resulted in a PC in tow with no chance of clearing it. as she cutaway, the extractor might have collided with it, bla-bla-bla, it all resulted in a lineover on her reserve which was impossible to control, so she spiralled into the ground. it wasnt the actual deployment that put her into coma.

but my fear still stands: if your main is somehow entangled with yourself, you cut away and its still stuck, without an RSL or a skyhook you might still have a chance to free yourself from it, then deploy the reserve into clean air.

the same thing was brought up at safety day. ok, it was at my dropzone, but i think the program came from our skydiving-organisation. cutaway, get back into a stable flightposition, then go for your reserve. all that only works if you have enough altitude left of course. so, pull relatively high, do your checks, make sure you have a working canopy above you, if not, get rid of it and try to deploy your reserve into clean air and in a stable position.

after all, you dont want to find yourself sub-1000ft with a violently spinning reserve and a linetwist that wont allow you to see where you're going.

mhm. this is a difficult one..

edited to add:

since everyone asks for my own opinion.. my guess, the lesson to be learned is as following: pack your gear right everytime (we hardly use packers over here, nobody "gives" you a pincheck. we're being taught to be self-responsible), do your own pincheck before you board a plane everytime. pull high enough to deal with things. chances are you'll hardly ever will need an RSL or skyhook. or an AAD for that matter.

those secondary devices (i dont know if you can all them like that, i mean RSLs, AADs) are there to save your sorry ass if you fucked up beforehand. there are cases when they might save your life, e.g. being knocked out in freefall and your AAD fires for you. primarily if you're safe in flight and all the way of getting there, the chances are rather minor you'll need them.. the only thing that keeps you safe is yourself in the first place.

all of them are there to protect the weakest part of the chain. so, dont be a weak part!

“Some may never live, but the crazy never die.”
-Hunter S. Thompson
"No. Try not. Do... or do not. There is no try."
-Yoda

[peregrinerose 0]

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but my fear still stands: if your main is somehow entangled with yourself, you cut away and its still stuck, without an RSL or a skyhook you might still have a chance to free yourself from it, then deploy the reserve into clean air.

Apply a little critical thinking to this. If you can't detach yourself from your main system before chopping, what magic do you think you can work to detach yourself after chopping when you are:
1. Possibly falling faster as depending on the configuration, the main may have been slowing you down somewhat
2. Possibly have increased tension on the unwanted attachment point since now in freefall all of your weight would be on that one point, rather than that one point plus possibly risers, thus making it even harder to release
3. Depending on the configuration, it could be a high speed mal to begin with, meaning you don't have time to do in-air rigging to fix it.
4. In air rigging has killed many jumpers who have followed this same philosophy, why are you setting yourself up to be next.
5. A majority of horseshoe or other main entangling on your body issues are almost entirely preventable.
6. Remember EPs for a horseshoe mal? Try 2x to release, chop, pull reserve. That's it. Not Try 2x to release, chop, spend some time doing freefall rigging, then pull reserve. You have just changed the EPs you were probably taught in your FJC.... there's a reason the EPs are the way they are.
7. You just added a bungee system to your reserve flap which INCREASES your odds of the very problem you describe as you'll be intentionally anchoring a part of your main system to your container.... see the irony there?


Your reasons for not wanting an RSL are ill informed and defy logic and common sense. Please learn to think independently of anyone on DZ.com, your instructors, and understand how these systems work and the pros and cons... you clearly don't, and that lack of understanding is dangerous. If you are faced with a horseshoe type mal tomorrow, your lack of understanding on this will probably kill you as you go in trying to do detach yourself prior to pulling reserve. That concerns me. You seem like a decent guy, and if this information makes to step back and think a little instead of just regurgitating some really warped logic, we may have saved your life.

Do or do not, there is no try -Yoda

[virgin-burner 1]

i understand your concern, and i added some more, in my humble opinion relevant information, to my above post.

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5. A majority of horseshoe or other main entangling on your body issues are almost entirely preventable.

this being one of them.

sometimes i should think harder before i post in the first place.
oh, and i really appreciate all of you guys constructive input. thats what i mean with a discussion taking place. we might agree to disagree, or i just reurgitate what i've been told, but it makes me think about things i probably wouldnt think about otherwise. cool!

“Some may never live, but the crazy never die.”
-Hunter S. Thompson
"No. Try not. Do... or do not. There is no try."
-Yoda

[piisfish 135]

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sometimes i should think harder before i post in the first place.

but you are a

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retarded moron

AND a FAG

good thing you finally try and think and get your own educated opinion (which might be the same as Moustache Man's )

scissors beat paper, paper beat rock, rock beat wingsuit - KarlM

[virgin-burner 1]

moustache man!!!

“Some may never live, but the crazy never die.”
-Hunter S. Thompson
"No. Try not. Do... or do not. There is no try."
-Yoda

[ROK 0]

["For any thing you should be able to create a list of pro and cons and then decide based on the list what your opinion is."]

What Eric said above is exactly what I have done. I've read, reviewed, talked with people, and walked away with a list of sub rules and changes to the general rules taught to us. I read about the incidents, and may make changes based on what makes sense to others and me. I'm a calm guy under extreme pressure and trust my ability to handle any emergency. This has been proven several times in my life travels. I'll look at something and say to myself "that makes sense, I'm now better prepared if that happens to me". Until recently I didn't have an AAD (because of the cons), and my RSL was either hooked, or un-hooked (based on what I've read, and heard)depending on what I was doing.

Your statement about "pulling relatively high" is a good answer. but if you're like me, it ain't gonna happen full time.

Well, a recent epiphany changed my views a bit...

I was demo-ing a wingsuit while mine is being modified and I had a total mal. No problem, I'm a cool guy, and pretty smart too. I worked at it deligently for a bit which of course was during the aerial acrobatics that I threw myself into concentrating on deploying. Before I knew it, I was between my decision altitude and the ground. FLIP OVER, SILVER, BAM, a very beautiful white canopy. I landed in a field where kids were playing ball, they ran over and handed me my freebag.

I was calm when I landed, but the first thought that went through my mind was, damn I'm glad that I put that AAD in my rig. I deployed before it would have fired, but the thought was there anyway. My second thought was, I'm leaving all of my safety devices hooked up from this point forward.

Was I scared into these decisions? Nope. It was more that reality hit me square in the face.

I'm convinced that when you scream through that red zone on your Alti, time speeds up. The luxury of pondering and playing grab-ass goes away very quickly. If there are devices that help me "see white" sooner, I'm using them.

I'll leave the pros and cons decisions to the guys and girls with years and thousands of jumps experience. Me...my devices are staying attached and in pristine working order.

[virgin-burner 1]

i just got my rig modified with a new pouch, a little bit of velcro for bridle and container.. and next time i have large groups in front of me that take forever to get out, i'm just gonna ask the pilot to do a second jumprun if really necessary. i wont let myself get tempted to rush out the door AGAIN!

sometimes i guess it needs reality to hit your face to speed things up. i wasnt fond of my pouch for longer, but everyone i asked had said, you'll be alright with that for another 100 jumps. obviously, it wasnt..

and i really like the idea of having an AAD in my rig too!

“Some may never live, but the crazy never die.”
-Hunter S. Thompson
"No. Try not. Do... or do not. There is no try."
-Yoda

[Baksteen 84]

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nobody "gives" you a pincheck. we're being taught to be self-responsible), do your own pincheck before you board a plane everytime.

Just a minor remark there;
I check my gear before I put it on, then I ask for a pin check to see if I missed anything.
A second opinion, basically.

Between jump 56 and 70, this saved my life. I got a boarding call with only three minutes notice from an overstressed manifest, while I also had to walk all the way to the other side of the airfield. Gearing up as fast as I could, I misrouted my chest strap.
As soon as my friend pointed this out, I resolved this wouldn't happen to me again. Next time I'll just miss the plane and bitch at manifest/the DZO until they refund my lift ticket.

"That formation-stuff in freefall is just fun and games but with an open parachute it's starting to sound like, you know, an extreme sport."
~mom

[mjosparky 3]

Every piece of equipment you jump with has at one time killed someone. I am talking gloves to shoes. Most of it has saved way more than it has killed. Your chances of surviving a problem go way up if you have an RSL and an AAD on you rig. Anyone who jumps without these 2 items without a valid reason is being foolish. I used neither on one rig for many years because of test scenarios I was involved in. But when sport jumping I thought they were great. Lose the ego and go with what has been proven to work.

No one is trying to flame your ass, they are trying to save your ass.

Sparky

My idea of a fair fight is clubbing baby seals