Whatzit?

[JohnRich 4]

Whatzit? (What is it?)

Who can guess correctly what the story is behind this little piece of paper?

[cosmobuddy 0]

Large ring hardness test results.

www.SkydiveLostPrairie.com

[councilman24 36]

What he said.

I cut mine off, with the help of the fire dept. bolt cutters, and got the niffty separable large ring. Which are now HIGHLY sought after.

BTW what was the harness spec? Not at home to look up the advisory.

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

[skybill 19]

Hi John,
What he said!! Hank Aschutto "Stretched" the rings on my V-7 Vector!! Had to cut them off and get the screw on's from Bill!! Too much fun!!

SCR-2034, SCS-680

III%,
Deli-out

[JohnRich 4]

Quote

Large ring hardness test results.

Wow - it only took 7 minutes for someone to figure it out. Good job!

Here's the full story, as I remember it.

The manufacturing process for the steel components on our parachute rigs involves several heat treatment processes. The first heating is to make the metal soft so that it can be formed into the shapes needed, and then the second heat treatment is to harden the steel again for strength.

Somewhere along the way with a batch of the large harness rings used in the 3-ring assembly, that second heat process was skipped. That let a bunch of rings get into the supply line that were still softer than they were supposed to be.

Those rings then got installed on numerous parachute rigs, and customers started jumping them.

Somewhere along the way, after that, a few people experienced hard openings, and they noticed that the large rings were stretched out into an oval shape, instead of being round. This deformation could have been severe enough to make the inside diameter too small to allow the middle ring of the 3-ring system from passing through it, thereby preventing a cut-away, and leaving a skydiver stuck with a bad chute that they couldn't release. As far as I remember, no one was actually hurt or killed because of this problem.

Subsequent investigation revealed the batch of soft rings, and new inspection steps were put in place by the parachute manufacturers to proof test the hardware they received from the steel hardware suppliers.

And then a recall was done of all the rigs that might have been manufactured with soft rings. This involved sending your rig back to the manufacturer so that they could perform a "Rockwell Test" on the rings. That test involves a machine that pushes a diamond point into the steel with a certain amount of force, and then measures the depth of the dimple made by the diamond to calculate the hardness of the steel.

If soft rings were found, they had to be cut off the rig and replaced with new ones. If the rings were found to be acceptable, then you got your rig back with the little slip of paper as shown in the original post, indicating the Rockwell Test results. That paper proved to any rigger at a future repack cycle that your rig had been tested and found okay.

And there you have "the rest of the story". All that from a little piece of yellow paper...

Photo attached:
3_Ring.JPG - Shows the tiny pin-point dimple in my 3-ring made by the Rockwell test.

Now all we need is a photo of one of the separable replacement No. 1 harness rings - does anyone have one? They aren't in the Para-Gear catalogs of that era.

[usedtajump 1]

Yep, had them replaced with the "screw on" type on my almost new Vector. I was somewhat pissed that they had to be replaced and always hated the look of the fugly replacements .

The older I get the less I care who I piss off.

[Beatnik 2]

Quote

Now all we need is a photo of one of the separable replacement No. 1 harness rings - does anyone have one? They aren't in the Para-Gear catalogs of that era.

I have several sets and one spare. I guess I can post a photo of one.

[muff528 3]

Quote

Quote

Now all we need is a photo of one of the separable replacement No. 1 harness rings - does anyone have one? They aren't in the Para-Gear catalogs of that era.

I have several sets and one spare. I guess I can post a photo of one.

Never know when you're gonna need one of those.

[ZigZagMarquis 8]

Quote

...Hank Aschutto...

Hank... Asciutto!!!??? Now THERE's a Blast-from-the-Past!

[JohnRich 4]

Quote

I have several sets and one spare. I guess I can post a photo of one.
Attachments: IMG_0002.jpg (207 KB)

Beautiful! Thanks for providing that.

[drjump 0]

Piglet and Piglet ll- fastest opening canopy ever made.

[kkeenan 13]

Quote

Piglet and Piglet ll- fastest opening canopy ever made.

Weapon of choice among the low-pull crowd of the 70s.

_____________________________________
Dude, you are so awesome...
Can I be on your ash jump ?