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sabr190

TM Poll: How many Reserve rides and Why?

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Man, as a packer
YOU'RE FIRED!!!:P

Don't cry. As a packer I shoud be fired too... Even when it wasn't my fault.

16 mal:
9 sport rig mal. - including 1 Astra fired at 3.000 at the same time my main canopy went out.
7 Tandens mal. (almost 3000 tandens jumps) - 5 on vector II, 1 Sigma, 1 Racer.


Jimmy.

No Drogue, no JUMP!!

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I seem to make around 1 reserve ride every 300 jumps or so. I'm not upset about it. I tell students, the first one is scary. After that you begin to think, " Oh no, not this shit again"

I did pack every mal myself, mostly line twists, but I also packed one of the other tandem guys a step through. :$
"It's very important at this point that you don't simply become a passenger." Flight instructor Dennis Anderson speaking about life and crosswind landings.



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One reserve ride a few years ago at Cedar Valley, UT. I now have 1243 tandems.

It was a slider up on an older SET, which I could not bring down, a tension knot up there? I worked at it for at least a thousand feet, then went for the red and silver.

I weigh about 150 and my passenger was about 90 lbs! Of course, she had no idea, and the landing was on tiptoes.

Suffice to say that I should have steered away from the DZ's notoriously slow opening rig on that jump. The parachute was relined shortly after, and the slider modified too.

Today I don't feel so bad when I get those 250 pound tandem students. I've even been known to swap a 115 pounder with a less adventurous TI. At least the ballast helps get the slider down!

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7000 Tandems, 18 reserve rides. Most of these have been due to poor gear maintenance, I am sorry to admit. While the actual mals may be describes as otherwise, beneath it all there have been frequent gear-related issues i.e. attachments points, worn bridles, worn drogues, etc. A gear check will only catch those things you are able to see at that point. Talk to the packers. they are frequently the first line of defense.
If you leave the plane without a parachute, you will be fine for the rest of your life.

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I'm not a tandem instructor (only ever once been a tandem passenger, come to that), but was wondering what TI's tend to say (if anything) to their students after a cutaway and reserve ride.

Some have posted (here and elsewhere) to say that students often simply don't realise that anything had gone wrong. Do TI's prefer to tell them or simply not mention it to avoid possibly freaking them out?

Apologies if anyone feels this is an off-topic digression.

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After my first, I was a bit too busy getting things sorted out to volunteer information, but when the student asked I answered his questions... He wasn't real sure what had happened but I still wanted to continue with explaining how to steer the parachute (even tho' the reserve doesn't have student loops on the toggles) , practice getting his feet up for landing and talk about the area and the winds....

After my second (about 4hours later the same day) the student was a bit more aware, we were open higher and I wasn't concerned about landing on target because I realized it was impossible, so I had more time to talk to him about it. Still, it's mostly just answering their questions...

Hey, if we didn't expect to have a malfunction sometime, we wouldn't wear reserves....
If some old guy can do it then obviously it can't be very extreme. Otherwise he'd already be dead.
Bruce McConkey 'I thought we were gonna die, and I couldn't think of anyone

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2 reserve ride in 500 tandems, both with the new TNT system.
1 was a knotted up drogue bridle ( so short, it was practically sitting on top of the main tray) Went straight reserve as it looked like the drogue/bridle was somehow wrapped around the main tray and the reserve tray was clear.

2 was a 3 ring flip, locking both instructor and secondary handles in place. Was certainly fun trying to peel out the cutaway cables while the secondary had the cutaway put locked in place, got it out and went to reserve.

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1 cutaway in ~700 tandems. Broke both center A lines right below the cascade. Handcam pic attached.

Also have landed 3 with a blown out end cell (flew and flared fine minus a built in turn) and 1 with a blown out center cell (got behind on that one, realized it at an altitude I was uncomfortable cutting away at. Hard landing but student was A-ok after landing on me.)
"Are you coming to the party?
Oh I'm coming, but I won't be there!"
Flying Hellfish #828
Dudist #52

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Fun Jumps Reserve rides 4
1 Packing Error
3 Due to Broken Steering Lines

Tandems Reserve Rides 5
All 5 were Tension knots.
Details: All 5 cutaways occurred within 4 months of each other. The DZO and other instructors thought it was due to packing errors because they were having an unusually high number tension knots as well. I watched the packers closely and they were doing acceptable jobs. The packers noticed that rubber bands were breaking on every jump and a videographer showed me one of my deployments. 3 or 4 of the stow bands broke when I deployed, dumping lines in a huge mess over my head. That narrowed the problem down to a possible bad batch of rubber bands. As soon as we got new rubber bands the tension knots ceased occurring.

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