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skypagan

No Cutaways in 24 years

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Beer thirty discussion we had recently, how long and how many jumps have you gone without a cutaway??? I have gone 24 years, between 4800 and 5100 jumps (stopped logging 10 years ago) most of the jumps were on stilleto 107s, an Alpha 104 a saber 120 I use for tight demos and wingsuiting. and assorted others velos, xaos even my first canopy, an excaliber 150.

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i had just 1 cutaway in my 2500 and that happened around jump 300 when i was jumping really old and bad gear... very old container with saber 1 main... fortunatelly reserve i had was Pdr - no issues there :) That was more then 10 years ago.
Bottom line - jump decent gear and pack good and you may never have one.

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skypagan

Beer thirty discussion we had recently, how long and how many jumps have you gone without a cutaway??? I have gone 24 years, between 4800 and 5100 jumps (stopped logging 10 years ago) most of the jumps were on stilleto 107s, an Alpha 104 a saber 120 I use for tight demos and wingsuiting. and assorted others velos, xaos even my first canopy, an excaliber 150.



That is an awesome record. Do you consider yourself a careful packer?
Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

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When I was chatting to a free fly instructor at z-hills a few years ago, he had more than 18, 000 jumps with no mals.... had never had a mal according to him (and his wife who packed for him).
He also said he used to do about 1, 000 coach jumps a year and my feeling was that he had been in the sport for quite a few years.

A better average than many.

***********************************************
I'm NOT totally useless... I can be used as a bad example

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I have gone 24 years, between 4800 and 5100 jumps



I'm in that same neighborhood. 19 years, about 5700-ish jumps, no cutaways. Probably half were done on Stiletto 107s, with the remainder mostly on various Velos, and a few hundred on larger wings when I was a newbie.

I'm not saying that every opening resulted in a 'good' canopy, just that I chose to land all of them, and managed to do so without injury. It wasn't always pretty, but I always walked away in one piece.
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I have had a total during a CREW jump



I was in a pretty good wrap when a buddy took out our 4-stack during a rotation. The other guy ended up cutting away, and I cleared my shit up and brought the other canopy down with me.

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been on my back 3 times with BAD line twists, fixed those too



Been there too, probably more then thrice! The best was years ago when the Velo first came out, I was demo-ing one in Deland, and also jumping one of the then-new Bridman suits. This was before everyone figured out that HP canopies and wingsuits weren't a good match, but I was dumping at 5k so I lot's of time to kick out of the twists. I think it was about 2k by the time I was flying straight.

I also had a string of toggles out in freefall back when freeflying was too new for the manufacturers to have come up with the idea of freefly-friendly. Velcro riser covers, Velcro toggles, and head-down are not a good mix. Half of the time the openings would be fine except for the unstowed toggle, and the other half would end up with the loose toggle wrapped around the risers or slider or whatever. It was 'trial by fire' for rear riser landings.

Fun times, but I'm smarter and more careful now (sort of).

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skypagan

Absolutely NOT!!!! Clear the lines, get it in the bag. My line stows are pretty good though.. packers packed about 1000 of those jumps.



Ok. No mals in 18, 000 jumps must be the new norm. Apologies for any unintentional misleading of anyone. I always thought it was about one mal in 800 to 1000 jumps, on average, but I can't remember where this came from.

I stand corrected.

***********************************************
I'm NOT totally useless... I can be used as a bad example

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mik

***Absolutely NOT!!!! Clear the lines, get it in the bag. My line stows are pretty good though.. packers packed about 1000 of those jumps.



Ok. No mals in 18, 000 jumps must be the new norm.

I stand corrected.
Not the new Norm, it's the same Pip! ;) You were right -- he is in a class by himself (18,000, no cutaways). Or in a very small class at least! I'd love to see more of these stories of thousands of jumps and no need for cutting away.
See the upside, and always wear your parachute! -- Christopher Titus

Shut Up & Jump!

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mik

***Absolutely NOT!!!! Clear the lines, get it in the bag. My line stows are pretty good though.. packers packed about 1000 of those jumps.



Ok. No mals in 18, 000 jumps must be the new norm. Apologies for any unintentional misleading of anyone. I always thought it was about one mal in 800 to 1000 jumps, on average, but I can't remember where this came from.

I stand corrected.

I think it is simply an out of sequence reply. I asked if he was a careful packer - his reply fits that question:)
Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

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Funny story (to me anyway).... an instructor at my DZ bragged to me a few times that she has over 1,000 jumps and never cutaway. Then one day I found out that she once had a mal and tried to cutaway, but for whatever reason couldn't manage to pull her handle (couldn't find it or hard pull, I don't know). In the time it took her to do this, the mal corrected itself and she aborted the cutaway. So the only reason that she had never cutaway is that she completely screwed up her EPs.

"So many fatalities and injuries are caused by decisions jumpers make before even getting into the aircraft. Skydiving can be safe AND fun at the same time...Honest." - Bill Booth

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Back in the day there was a sign posted in the loft at York Parachute Center in Thomasville, PA that read, "Pack Slow, Fall Stable, Pull High". The DZO, the late George Bolen, said that saying is the secret to survival in the sport and to always prepare for and execute each jump as though you are jumping without a reserve. There are probably more people than we know of out there that have thousands of jumps without experiencing a malfunction and cutaway.
www.geronimoskydiving.com

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I've said it plenty and it's not a secret. I packed myself two malfunctions in my first 30 jumps....both my fault. I did have a cutaway of sorts on my second malfunction when I had two out. I have a decent disparity in size between my main and reserve and my main was behind the reserve so I thought an issue was inevitable and I chopped it. I have learned a lot more about my gear since then :$

www.facebook.com/FlintHillsRigging

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4 chops in my first 5 years, none since (20 years).
Step through at 50 jumps, horseshoe exiting on a formation load (bumped my pin out on exit), friction knots (didn't know about the importance of keeping twists out of steering lines with micro line), and PCIT (by a packer).
None in the last twenty years, mostly under a stiletto.
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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