question about two out

[Loonix 0]

One thing I came to think about... If you have a both canopies out, I learned at my course to do as little as possible, because of risk of entaglement or downplane... So I figured, if you have some altitude, and the canopies are flying fine, no linetwists etc, how about deliberatly turning them in opposite directions and create a downplane, and then cut away the main? In a downplane I can't imagine that the cut away canopy could entangle with the reserve... Then you would be able to land only one, no risk of downplane at 50 feet, bouncing you..

I wouldn't do this until someone I trust says I should, but.. What do you think? :)

[mr2mk1g 10]

That is one method of dealing with the situation where enough altitude is present. PD seems to recommend that for situations where you have a side-by-side formation or where the canopies keep trying to go into a downplane.

I don't think there's a perfect solution however for each scenario you can come up with. It's probably one of those things where you can do everything right (once you've made the error of putting yourself in the situation of course) and still die.

The best thing to do is to sit down and talk the whole thing through with an instructor or badger your DZ into holding a seminar on the subject.

Take a look here: http://www.performancedesigns.com/docs/dualsq.pdf - generally considered the most authoritative source on the topic... although the data may be somewhat outdated for some jumpers given the types of canopies they were using for the tests.

[tdog 0]

I know more than one person who has wondered the same thing as you...

Seems like a pretty advanced move that is real hard to practice in that we can't go on a hop-n-pop and try it 10 times...

My biggest fear.... Two out... If you have it, the odds are you had a cypres fire right as you pitched your main... I don't know the stats, but everyone I know who has two out, that was the cause...

So where are you at with two out? Somewhere around 500-750 feet, maybe higher, but not by much... Is this the altitude to try something????

I guess what I am saying is... I am no longer a student and I have the attitude that I should research all my options and preplan my plan A, Plan B and Plan Cs...

[Harksaw 0]

The odds of having two out at a high altitude is pretty small. If it happens, it's going to be low and you're not going to want to burn up a few hundred feet of altitude getting yourself an intentional downplane.

You could also conceivably cause one of your canopies to run into the other and collapse/entangle when trying to do this.

__________________________________________________
I started skydiving for the money and the chicks. Oh, wait.

[piisfish 135]

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I don't know the stats, but everyone I know who has two out, that was the cause...

I know personally of 4 2-outs, in 3 cases... one ways a 2 way....
-reserve pin wasn't well settled and reserve popped at opening, approx 3'000 ft, biplaned till landing.
-cypres fired at around 1'700 ft due to bad Cypres setting, landing at another DZ, instead of having the Cypres set at a V altitude, it had it at a ^ altitude. Downplaned, chopped, landed safely under reserve.
-both Cypres's fired after a freeflyjump and loss of alt awareness. Both landed safely biplanes.

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

[Loonix 0]

thanks for that link, I read it, and now consider myself considerably wiser on this area :)

and thanks to other posters as well!

[councilman24 36]

I'd want to take a very long look at things. Is anything with the cutaway system screwed up, does it look like it will work normally? Is the main PC and bridle clear of the reserve and likely to remain so? Do I have a Racer on and do I need to detach the RSL? Do I need to detach the RSL no matter what rig it is so that the lanyard doesn't get caught on something when being pulled from an open container? (I've heard of a main being towed after cutaway by a RSL ring trapped on the reserve pin bridged between the two container ripcord guide rings.) Do I have lots and lots of altitude to deal with whatever happens when I try this? Am I going to get my hand stuck in a toggle? etc. etc.

If you have something stable I don't know that I'd screw with it. If they're trying to diverge anyway then maybe it's time to get rid of the main.

It's not a bad decision to make. I saw a low timer pull low and have an FXC 12000 fire. He started with a side by side, but the canopies started into a partial down plane. Slow enough to survive and probably to walk away from. Unfortunately the low timer waited to cutaway until about 100'. The reserve swung out, turned 180 and crashed him into the ground much faster than if he rode the downplane in. Closed head injury, permanent brain damage.

So, if it happened high enough, and you had confidence you could do it successfully, and if it was squirrly to start with, then a resonable choice. A stable biplane I probably wouldn't screw with.

I'm old for my age.
Terry Urban
D-8631
FAA DPRE

[goose491 0]

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I'd want to take a very long look at things. Is anything with the cutaway system screwed up, does it look like it will work normally? Is the main PC and bridle clear of the reserve and likely to remain so? Do I have a Racer on and do I need to detach the RSL? Do I need to detach the RSL no matter what rig it is so that the lanyard doesn't get caught on something when being pulled from an open container?

Also watch the risers. Did the canopies deploy clean of each other or was one deployed through the risers of the other?.. worse case scenario, through front and rear risers of one side of the other?

I'd hate to chop a main that has a firm grip on my reserve.

My Karma ran over my Dogma!!!

[winsor 187]

Quote

One thing I came to think about... If you have a both canopies out, I learned at my course to do as little as possible, because of risk of entaglement or downplane... So I figured, if you have some altitude, and the canopies are flying fine, no linetwists etc, how about deliberatly turning them in opposite directions and create a downplane, and then cut away the main? In a downplane I can't imagine that the cut away canopy could entangle with the reserve... Then you would be able to land only one, no risk of downplane at 50 feet, bouncing you..

I wouldn't do this until someone I trust says I should, but.. What do you think? :)

I do not have a canned response to this one.

I have seen people land personal biplanes successfully, and that was great. They did the right thing.

I also know a couple of people who landed personal downplanes, and they were not very happy with the results (both sort of survived).

Since I am given to jumping the largest reserve I can get my hands on, regardless of the size of the main, there is a good chance that the main and reserve won't be particularly compatible. I think I know what to expect if a huge 7-cell opens up behind a tiny ground-hungry elliptical, but I could be wrong. In any event, given sufficient altitude I think I would like to get them flying in different directions and stick with the big, slow one.

Though two out is not as dire an emergency as, say, a horseshoe malfunction, the fact that it can leave you maimed or dead puts it into the serious bracket. Thus, I try to avoid having to figure it out firsthand.

Prophylactic measures include checking all your handles before exit, so you can get to your cutaway handle if you wish to use it, as well as staying the hell out of the basement.

The adage "don't pull low - unless you are!" is good advice. Altitude is your friend, and it is hard to get back once it is gone. Something that is a NSTIWTIWGTD story at 3,000 ft. can be an incident report at 500.

Another thing I strongly recommend is getting some CRW training. The best way to learn how canopies fly together is to spend a weekend with some dedicated CRW dogs, learning the fine points of intentional entanglements.

You stand to learn a hell of a lot more about flying your canopy when doing CRW than by playing chicken with the earth with the swoopers. Your average CRW dog can swoop with the best of them, but all too many swoopers have a very poor concept of all-around canopy piloting.

While you are learning CRW (from seasoned CRW dogs), be sure to ask their opinion about two-out procedures, and pay attention to their answer.


Blue skies,

Winsor

[riggerrob 561]

Why mess with success?
If you have two canopies out - and they are playing well together - LEAVE THEM ALONE!
I have seen several students land stable biplanes (because they freefell low enough to scare their FXCs) and they landed softly.
I even found myself under a well-behaved biplane (because I was stupid enough to scare an FXC) and landed it softly.
In my opinion, most low-altitude down-planes are caused by people jerking on toggles at low altitudes because they believe they MUST turn into the wind for landing.
BS!
Biplanes and side-by-sides descend so slowly and have so much forward speed (if you don't flare them) that it does not matter which way you face, as long as you face towards an open area.

Has anyone else noticed that two-outs have become more common since Cypres was introduced?

The best way to avoid this whole dilemma is to deploy your main at a reasonable altitude.

[FrogNog 1]

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Has anyone else noticed that two-outs have become more common since Cypres was introduced?

I haven't been in the sport long enough to decide if this is the case, but I assume it is. I'd like to point out that two-outs are a replacement for no-outs. A no-out will be fatal almost every time. A two-out might be fatal, and we see a lot of times they aren't.

The increase in two-outs that can be attributed to AADs is probably larger than the decrease in no-outs. This net difference is mostly caused by AAD misconfiguration or low pulling.

It is certainly worth comparing the increase in two-outs attributable to AADs to the fatality rate of two-outs. Depending on the fatality % of a two-out, this increase could move the overall fatality rate up, down, or not at all.

Thankfully, AAD-assisted two-outs are very avoidable. We all know about a couple of instances where high-performance landings caused deadly or potentially-deadly reserve opening at low altitude. But other than that, hasn't every AAD-assisted two-out been the result of jumper error?

A footnote: I would like to exclude from my definition of "AAD-assisted two-outs" any case where the jumper could not open the main due to an equipment problem such as a hard main pull, and then the AAD opens the reserve, and then the main deploys due to the container stress changing. While it's true the AAD contributed to the two-out in that situation, it did so in the same way manual deployment of the reserve at that same time would have, so I think excluding these from any statistics would provide the best comparative picture.

-=-=-=-=-
Pull.

[billvon 2,435]

The way I look at it:

If both canopies are out, and they're flying, and they will land you OK - best leave them alone. If you try to cut away, it may work. Or it may not, in which case you have turned a survivable problem into a non-survivable one.

Studies have shown that most times you have either a biplane or a side-by-side, the canopies will remain fairly stable. They will land you pretty well even without a flare since you have so much fabric up there.

[kelpdiver 2]

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Has anyone else noticed that two-outs have become more common since Cypres was introduced?

Did the cypres come about the same time as the collapsible PC?

There's another potential cause for 2 outs - PC in tow, pull the reserve without cutaway. No idea how frequently it might happen.

My AFF-I said that he personally would probably cause the downplane to cutaway, but didn't advise it for general practice.

[jsaxton 0]

Think about this,

You probably have 2 out because you had a Cypres fire. Do you really want to induce a downplane below 750 feet?

If it's flying, land it.

Trust me, I know