2 learning incidents

[evilivan 0]

I'm at Lake Wales for the Christmas boogie, and had couple things happen... I'm on a call so I'll make this short:
1) Exiting the CASA 3way FF, train exit. Managed to catch my hackey on the side of the plane and got dumped out static line style out of the door (yes I know, a CASA door should be big enough ). Scary bit was that the hackey stuck till I pulled it clear as I fell away. Could have been a whole lot nastier. Lessons here? Obvious.......
2) Just filmed a 7way RW (CASA again). As we exit the load organiser looks at me and starts pointing at his cutaway handle. I do a handles check find my reserve handle floating around loose, so cover it with my hand. Load organiser flies over and tries to put it back, but can't (Mirage; tricky velcro pocket arrangement on the reserve handle). The cable hasn't come out any so I keep my hand on it and film their jump. Break off, wave one-handed and dump. All OK.
Lesson here? Check your handles.... (I did check my handles, always do, I think it must have got knocked on exit). Rigger says my velcro is OK, but I'm replacing it next repack.

Play safe

"If you can keep your head when all around you have lost theirs, then you probably haven't understood the seriousness of the situation."
David Brent

[PhreeZone 15]

I'm interested in knowing where in the gate your hackey got stuck. I climb all over that gate all summer long and would like to know where else to avoid.

Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery

Parachutemanuals.com

[flyhi 24]

Quote

Managed to catch my hackey on the side of the plane

Hope you don't mind a few questions: Assuming the direction of flight is twelve o'clock, what way was the train facing? What was your position in the train, i.e. first, last, middle? What, exactly, did it catch on? What alerted you to being hung-up? Is there a safer or less safe way to organize a train out of a tail gate aircraft?

Very interesting incident with a lot for everyone to learn. Thanks for sharing.

Shit happens. And it usually happens because of physics.

[freeflir29 0]

I too have whacked my rig fairly hard on exit from a Casa. I think it was a 4 or 5 way flower. Nothing happend but I certainly worried about it the whole dive. It's pretty easy to hit your rig on the sides of the fuselage. They curve in at the bottom...where the ramp mates up. Wide formation like a head down train launching sideways= BE CAREFUL.

[froglady 0]

One of my team mates jumps a Mirage, quite a few times his reserve handle has come out. Design problem?

FrogLady

[weid14 0]

there is a right way and a wrong way to stow a Mirage reserve handle... make sure it is correct. my teammate snagged mine once and made it floating, I have switched to a soft handle to avoid that issue.

[evilivan 0]

I was standing on the right of the tail gate sideways on. Hard to describe where my hackey caught, I will post a couple of stills from the video
when I get back to the UK.
What freeflir said about the sides curving in was a big part of it.

"If you can keep your head when all around you have lost theirs, then you probably haven't understood the seriousness of the situation."
David Brent