Reserve pad pulls

[billvon 2,406]

>I know people who put 20-30k miles on their motorcycle chains because they're
> a stickler for cleaning. I'm not, so from the get go I know I'll be change mine out
> at around 7-10k to minimize my risk of it breaking. The "right" thing to do might
> be to just promise to clean my chain more often, but realistically I'm probably
> safer just swapping it out sooner.
Well, but that's an issue of maintenance, not of deliberately putting yourself in harm's way. A better comparison might be a motorcycle rider who buys his first set of leathers and decides he can now drink and ride, since the leathers will help keep him safe if he dumps the bike. A better plan would be to not drink too much in the first place, rather than relying on the (dubious) abrasion protection of the new clothes.
>For some people, avoiding loads that have a high probability of collisions may not
> be realistic for their personality. So they work on another ways to reduce risk.
An RWer who claims that "avoiding collisions is not realistic for my personality" will not get asked back on any RW jumps. The issue will go away because he will always be doing solos. Similarly, someone who does CRW and claims that he just always wraps people, that's just the way it is, isn't going to be able to do CRW with anyone. Hard helmets and hook knives can help keep you alive when things do go bad, but they are no reason to claim "Hey, things go bad - that's just the way it is."
>Swooping might be another example. Some people are going to swoop, they just
> have the personality that craves it. Promising themselves they "won't ever
> swoop" and getting a canopy around that decision may be more harmful than
> accepting that they'll probably eventually start swooping and should pick a
> canopy more safely in tune for learning it.
Different issue. Swooping _can_ be done safely, and swooping has become a prett finely honed art. Aerial collisions, whether in RW or freefly, are simply not a practiced art. People practice to avoid collisions, not to do them well. (And no, pundits, a dock is not a collision.)
In any case, if you want to use soft handles, use them. If you use them as a reason to either avoid learning how to not collide with people, or as a reason to get on loads where collisions are common, that soft handle just did you a lot more harm than good.
-bill von

[jhus 0]

Those are great arguments for not using pads on the reserve cable... now put that aside for a second, and can anyone explain why the cutaway handle was designed as a pad?

[billvon 2,406]

>now put that aside for a second, and can anyone explain why the cutaway
> handle was designed as a pad?
How about:
1. Early rigs (and some modern military rigs) had the main ripcord and the cutaway handle next to each other on the same lift web; it would have been difficult to attach two D-rings to the same place on the harness.
2. An accidental reserve deployment at 100 feet is probably not fatal; an accidental cutaway at 100 feet almost certainly is (especially without an RSL.) Therefore, if one is going to be harder to pull than the other, it should probably be the cutaway handle.
3. There is value to partial dyslexics (like me) in having a cutaway handle that feels totally different than a reserve handle.
-bill von

[RichM 0]

*******************
Similarly, if there's a problem with collisions in freefall, I would think that step 1 would be to avoid such collisions by choosing loads where they are unlikely to occur. Changing gear to prevent deployments during collisions seems a little backwards. While there are cases it might make sense to do, I think those cases are far in the minority.
*************
I don't actively set out to have a collision, I think I already choose loads where I don't think a collision going to happen, but I know that it does happen and so it might happen to me at some point. But doesn't changing both, sum the risk reduction from each?
Rich M

[billbooth 10]

The hardest part about designing the 3-ring release system was coming up with a suitable handle. All previous releases had a safety of some sort to prevent accidental release. But I wanted a device that could release both risers with one easy motion. So I needed a handle that could be pulled only by the human hand, and never be snagged by anything else. Remember, the most important function of any release system is NOT to release. It has to hold firm 1,000 times between each cutaway. If I hadn't designed the soft handle, the 3 ring probably would have been a failed design. Remember, when a reserve ripcord handle is knocked out of the pocket, pressure from the reserve pilot chute spring on the loop and pin usually prevents an accidental opening. But a 3-ring cable has no such pressure on it until after opening, so a 3-ring handle knocked out during exit, would probably go completely bye-bye in freefall, resulting in a real surprise at pull time. The soft 3-ring handle has been pretty successful for over 20 years now. As a matter of fact, while I have heard of people accidently pulling it, I have yet to hear of it being knocked out of its pocket, or being accidentally snagged, on exit or during relative work.

[billbooth 10]

Dyslexics of the world, "UNTIE"!

[Lindsey 0]

Ya' know how to tell a dyslexic agnostic?
He lays awake at night wondering if there really is a dog.
some days it's just not worth gnawing through the straps

[Remster 24]

Good lord.. now we have Bill Von getting Bill Booth into a bondage discussion.... I've seen it all...
Remster
Muff 914

[jceman 1]

Quote

I have yet to hear of it being knocked out of its pocket, or being accidentally snagged, on exit or during relative work.

WFFC 1998 -- AllFlagler 10 way out of the CASA. My wife Lynn and I are in the five-way base. It funnels on exit (no surprise), but she and I are still together. The others stay with the funnel too long. All settles out, we are stable waiting for the base to rebuild, but no one is docking(?).
One of the other jumpers comes close in my right side and is gesturing, pointing at Lynn, so I look down her gear -- her reserve ripcord is floating in the wind and to my right, there is her cutaway pillow hanging by about 6 inches of yellow cable!
I tap her on the head so she looks down to see the mess; after breakoff, she goes directly for the silver handle, not wanting to take any chances on one of those surprises you mention. Actually she waited what seemed an ungodly amount of time, that really scared us the most!
I only posted this Bill, to fill in one of the tiny gaps in your knowledge base, as you said you hadn't heard of it happening. Thanks for all your informative posts.
Have to go, late for my ADA meeting --Dyslexics Against Drugs.

[MarkM 0]

Quote

In any case, if you want to use soft handles, use them. If you use them as a reason to either avoid learning how to not collide with people, or as a reason to get on loads where collisions are common, that soft handle just did you a lot more harm than good.

Actually I don't have soft handles pretty much due to arguements you made against them months ago.
I guess what I was trying to get across(poorly like I always do), is that there are the things you should do and the things you will do. While you should always aim for doing the things you should do, plan ahead for the things you will do.

[polarbear 1]

I actually read a fatality report (in a foreign country) about two guys who were doing a CRW downplane. The plan was to carry the downplane to within a few hundred feet of the ground, separate, and land with the speed of the down plane. They formed the downplane successfully. Aparently, each person had his feet in the armpits of the other person. Upon separation at a few hundred feet, one guy's foot snagged the other guy's cutaway handle and released his main...he had no time for a reserve.
Obviously, that is an extreme case.

[billbooth 10]

There is always a delicate balance between making a handle possible to pull when you need it, and making it "impossible" to be pulled accidentally. The sloped shouldered, 3-ring soft handle, held by Velcro comes close. However, it was a lot closer at first. My original design, (still used on my tandem rigs) "sandwiched" the handle between the two pieces of the webbing which make up the main lift webb, with Velcro on BOTH sides of the handle. It was absolutely "bulletproof". Trouble was, you really had to peel the handle upward to release the Velcro, before you could pull it down to activate the release, and some jumpers, who didn't bother to learn how to use the handle, reported hard pulls. So I back off on security, and moved the handle to the rear of the main lift web, and used just one piece of Velcro. Easier to pull, but less secure. It was probably a good trade off, considering how many people still choose to be gear ignorant. Still, it's always a shame to "dumb down" any design.
Just so you guys know to look for it, there is a little known design flaw which was introduced into the 3-ring release system with the advent of upper harness rings on some rigs. I'm sure it resulted in quite a few accidental releases. It has since been corrected, but I have not heard of a recall for the affected rigs. The problem is this: the 3-ring and ripcord housings were left free and exposed for several inches, from where they left the shoulder pad, right past the harness ring to the handle. If this exposed (and unprotected) housing were snagged or grabbed, the 3-ring or reserve would be accidentally activated. The main purpose of a housing is to protect the ripcord, from handle to pin, from acccidental snagging. To do this, it must be secured at both ends. It's hard to believe that this very basic rule would be ignored, but it was for several years. You need a handle of a certain size to pull, but this design effectively doubled the length of the snaggable area, with no appreciable benefit. Perhaps some of the stories of accidental 3-ring releases were due to this design flaw.