Ellipticals and Line twists.. a question.

[Auryn 0]

I have a Jonathon 150 I am loading at 1.3:1. I have 270 jumps and havent had any more than 1 line twist in the last 100 jumps... until this weekend.

I was under the impression that if you get into serious line twist under an older elliptical (like the jonathon or the stilletto) you were pretty much guaranteed a ride straight down toward mother earth, resulting in a cutaway.. my experience on Sunday was different.

I throw out and look down b/c of my new camera, and before I know it, I felt the risers hit the back of my head and knew I had a line twist.. upon looking up however, I realized it was 6.

my heart was in my throat and my brain went into malfunction mode.. I knew this would be my first cutaway.. but, I quickly saw my canopy was flying straight and stable.. just like the Mantas of my student days. Kick out of it and no big deal.

who else has had serious line twists on an elliptical and not been slung around like a rag doll ?

Blue Ones !!

Bryan

[AggieDave 6]

It all depends on how the risers are weighted in the twists and if the risers are even or not. For instance, if you're in a spinning line twist situation, quite a bit of the time you can stop the spinning/diving by pulling your links straight (evening them out).

Once again, this really goes back to body position during deployment, as well as a few factors with line stows, but body position and flying your opening will take care of most people's problems.

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[skygod7777 0]

ya, i have had line twist under my old heatwave, fx, my current vx, and may other canopies. it's really no big deal. if your spinning, grab the oposite riser, and stop it (if you have time of course).

what it comes down to is what dave said. it's your body position on opening, and then if your sitting in your harness even. if you are even, you'll get out of the line twist just fine, but if your are cocked to one side or the other, your screwed, until you get back straight.

later

[Hooknswoop 19]

My standard line twist spiel:

Line twists have gone from a common nuisance to a common malfunction on small, highly loaded elliptical canopies. There are techniques for reducing the chances of incurring line twists and correcting them if you do get them.

The first step to handling line twists is to prevent them in the first place. The looser the chest strap is the wider the 3 rings will be on deployment, which makes it harder for line twists to develop. Of course, be sure that your harness is secure enough to keep you from sliding out of it. Make sure your leg straps are even. For free flyers, a piece of bungee or elastic between your leg straps will help keep the leg straps from creeping to the back of your knees and keep the risers loaded evenly on deployment. Evenly loading the harness on deployment by keeping your hips and shoulders level with the ground will help keep the canopy opening on heading. A pre-mature brake release can easily cause line twists and limits your ability to steer away from others immediately after deploying. When stowing the lines on the deployment bag, keep the stows neat and even. Refer to your owner's manual or call the manufacturer for the correct size rubber bands. Leave 12 to 18 inches of excess line between the side with the least amount of excess and the corner of the reserve container. This will prevent the lines from hanging up on the reserve container and twisting the deployment bag as it leaves the container. A worn out pilot chute can spin on deployment, which can spin the deployment bag. Replace a pilot chute that has holes in the fabric or tears in the mesh. Re-line a canopy that is out of trim. If one end cell “A” line has shrunk more than the opposite side, the canopy will open turning in the direction of the shorter line. Also, if one steering line has shrunk more than another or has excessive twists in the line, the canopy will want to turn in the direction of the shorter line on opening. Take care when setting the brakes of your canopy and take out any twists in the steering lines, which shorten the line. Pulling the slider down to the 3 rings can prevent self-induced line twists and most importantly, smooth control inputs.

Even if you take all possible precautions, line twists still happen. If you find yourself under canopy with line twists and the canopy is flying straight, simply kick out of the twists. Make sure you are kicking in the right direction. You can also twist the risers to bring the twists closer to you and reach above the twists for leverage to get yourself out of the twists.

Let's say that you weigh 170 lbs. And that when you open, you have 60% of your weight on one leg stap and 40% on the other. So the harness shifts on opening, so that the links are not even. The canopy begins to spin, creating spinning line twists, i.e. harness steering. As the spin rate increases, so do the "G" forces. Initially you had 102 lbs. (60% of 170 lbs.) in one leg strap and 68 lbs. in the other leg strap, a 34 lb. difference. Now, because of the spinning, you are pulling 2 "G"'s. Now in one leg strap there is 204 lbs. and 136 lbs. in the other, a 68 lb. difference.

If the canopy is spinning with line twists, react quickly, look up at your links and make them even by shifting your weight in the harness. Be careful not to overdo it and cause the canopy to spin in the opposite direction. At the same time, make sure your brakes are still set. You can use any reference you want, but I’ve found using the links to make the risers even is easiest. The canopy should stop spinning and fly straight. Now kick out of the line twists. Again, make sure you are kicking in the right direction. A canopy that is spinning in line twists loses altitude rapidly. It is critical to maintain altitude awareness. If you are on your back, it is because as the canopy opens and you sit down into the harness, you are in a de-arched and stable back-to-earth free fall position. The speeds generated by a spinning canopy can be close or even overlap with free fall speeds. The same aerodynamics forces that would put you back-to-earth in free fall will put you back-to-earth under a spinning canopy. Remember under a highly loaded elliptical, you don’t have much time depending on your pull altitude and you do not want the twists to include the excess cutaway cable in the back of your risers. This can make for a difficult or impossible cutaway. Riser inserts have been proven to reduce the pull force during a cutaway from line twists.

Hook

[Designer 0]

Packing and body position!

[diverdriver 5]

Just to add to what Derek said:

Altitude awarness is EVERYTHING! If you are in spinning line twists at decision altitude I don't care what recovery techniques you think you know. I saw video of a guy with well over 1,000 jumps in spinning line twists. He waisted valuable time trying to get out of the line twists. He then decided to cutaway but grabbed his chest strap and tried pulling it. Then he grappled for the cutaway handle and then pulled the chest strap again trying to deploy the reserve. Again, he finally got the reserve handle pulled.

The result of this waisted time was he got the reserve out a QUARTER second soon enough to survive. The video shows him hitting the ground with the reserve slider still half-way up the lines.

It's all well and good to have an idea of how to get out of spinning DIVING line twists but what if you don't do it properly? And you began your main deployment low? Then you grappled with your handles? You're in the dirt! Have a plan and know down to what altitude you will try to fix something and when you will go straight to cutting it away.

We had a fatality at SDC where a jumper under spinning line twists cutaway at 200 feet AGL. He tried to get out of those twists from an altitude of about 2,500 feet (as seen by other jumpers on the load and a ground witness). Maybe he read somewhere that you could get out of spinning line twists just by making the links even. If he did think that, it was a fatal delay. DON'T MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE!

Chris Schindler

[skydivegirl 0]

Hey Bryan, do you think you may have been in a funky body postion because of your new camera? For example, did you turn your head to protect the side mount during deployment? You may have turned your body as well...

Just a thought.

Pink Mafia Sis #26

[Auryn 0]

Quote

Hey Bryan, do you think you may have been in a funky body postion because of your new camera? For example, did you turn your head to protect the side mount during deployment? You may have turned your body as well...

Just a thought.

My Body position was essentially the same as always before.. I kept my head straight in the past to encourage an on-heading opening.. the only difference with the camera is I was looking down initially to keep the camera away from the risers as I deployed.. but overall my body position was similar to what I have been using. I may have let a shoulder drop accidentally tho by focusing more on my head..

Blue Ones !

Bryan

[BoobieCootie 0]

I have to agree with all your comments Mr. Vanboeschoten
Jump 176 was just that.

I've since replaced my pilot chute, had a bungee put in, and got my canopy relined.

And I'm loading mine ~1.23

[hookitt 0]

I've had more line twists that flew just fine than ones that spiraled. A good example is 8 line twists and it flew fine. However I've cutaway from 1 and 1/2... go figure.

The more you *help* your canopy on opening, trying to steer it and such, the more likely likely line twists will result in a lovely high speed spiral toward the ground. Stay square and let the parachute just do it's thing, when it opens then use steering input.

Line twisted parachutes sometimes just dive, then you're f***ed. But if you find you have them ...the don't flinch don't breathe approach tends to work well to get out of them.
-

My grammar sometimes resembles that of magnetic refrigerator poetry... Ghetto

[freakyrat 1]

I've had two of the line twist malfuntions on my 120 Stiletto. One was the spinning, diving off on one side, pinwilling (Spinetto), very entertaining kind that I had to cut away from and one recently I caught the canopy out of the corner of my eye doing what you described and trying to dive off to the left with the line twists. I quickly grabbed the right side risers and pulled the canopy over my head and licked out of the twists. Ended up about a mile east of my DZ in Waller but still got back. These are the only times my 120 has line twisted. I think others expressed here what the basic remedies are for these situations but each situation is different. The bottom line is don't waste time because these type malfunctions on highly loaded eliptticals can go to hell pretty quickly.

[sfc 0]

I went from a spectre to a stilletto 135 in Jan and have about 60 jumps on it now. Loading about 1.3:1

I had one line twist up until last weekend, just a 1/2 twist. it flew fine.

I have been really careful with body position and making sure the leg straps are even.

On the first jump of the day, had a really long spot, thanks sebazzz.., and pulled after a short track without paying attention, three line twists, a hint of a turn in the canopy, but ok. Bad body position I think.

Two jumps later, getting lazy, dumped without paying attention to the body again, 1 1/2 twists, and I had a spinetto, scared the crap out of me, lots of horizon behind the canopy, spinning on my back, I couldn't even begin to get out of it, almost went for the handles but I remembered someone telling me you can pull on the risers and correct it if you are lucky, so I used my body to pull down hard on one side and it recovered to straight and level and I was clear by 2200. The rest of the day I concentrated on body position and I had mostly on heading openings. From what I exerienced I think it is soooo important to keep the body position goo right up until you have a full canopy, not just while you are pitching.
A question for the eliptical experts. Did you change your decision altitude when you went eliptical, what do you do to make sure you don't get distracted while spinning, with back to earth you don't have the visual, I had no idea when I cleared it, I had to watch the video to remember.