Have you had a scary tandem Mal

[Bowie 0]

I post this because i have now only heard about scary vector tandem mals.
The first one lineover on easy 425 sqft cutaway 4000 ft tandem reserve streaming till 900 ft.
The Second i have no detail about but about the same thing about the reserve streaming for a loong time.
The third happend this weekend after drouge release 5500 ft the drouge is getting ripped off at the canopy attachment point. The bag then falls down on TM's legs he cutaway and have a streaming reserve with slider sitting about 1,5 m up on the lines causing the now half open reserve to stall banging the nose cells togehter. He pulls the back risers and under 1000 ft he gets the slider down so the canopy flies stable.
I only have 85 tandems and i have started to wonder if this is normal for tandem reserves "to stream for a loong time" if so what if i have a problem in low altitude about 3500 ft will my reserve save the life of me and my passenger.???

What is your experience on this???

I trust my sports rig below 1000 ft I trust my BASE rig below 300 ft. But i dont know about my tandem anymore and that scares the shit out of me..

Bo Wienberg

vimeo.com/bowienberg

[Deuce 1]

By streaming, do you mean "sniveling"?

They have to do that in case you have do deploy the reserve at tandem terminal. That's why we open above 5000 feet. I have 4 tandem reserve rides, and yeah, they seem to take forever, but if I manage to need a tandem reserve at terminal, I would rather not blow lines and cells and damage to me and my passenger because the reserve opened like a sport reserve.

Again, that's why we open our tandem canopies so high.

[skydog 2]

Not had a long opening on a tandem reserve, but did have a line over on one......

Managed to clear it, but sure was scary...

Bryn

Journey not destination.....

[SkymonkeyONE 3]

I lived through a tandem total with drogue in tow which I had to fire my reserve into. My three-ring drogue release cable got pulled through the zero grommet, thus locking the entire mechanism and preventing drogue release by means of either three handles. I got a reserve over my head at around two grand and stood the landing up in the peas. The passenger never knew anything was up. I landed with the drogue trailing behind me, still fully inflated.

Chuck

[Bowie 0]

Yes i mean sniveling. And yes i know it is supposed to do so but for 3000 ft that is a long time. The Vector instruction manual advise you to deploy at 4500 ft..
That gives you 1500 ft to find out you have a mal and you even has to help the reserve opening by yanking the rear risers like a horney monkey

Bo Wienberg

vimeo.com/bowienberg

[tkhayes 126]

so many that i lost count.....
TK

[linestretch 0]

i had a terminal (no drogue) reserve deployment that put me to sleep for a few seconds. I wish that one had sniveled.

my pics & stuff!

[livendive 8]

I haven't, but I've watched one. I believe it was an out of sequence EP. I don't remember what exactly was wrong, but with the drogue in tow, the TM dumped the reserve. The main then came out and was hanging below them in the bag. The reserve was stalling, and as the TM reached up to get it under control, the main got out of the bag and inflated. It then came up and trapped the TMs arms between the main and reserve risers (that's how he described it to me). The canopies then downplaned and started spinning, and the TM tore both biceps trying to get to the cutaway. He couldn't, but was able to get the student to reach back and pull it at a few hundred feet. They turned maybe 30 more degrees and pounded into an open soccer field in a fairly thick residential area.

Blues,
Dave

"I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!"
(drink Mountain Dew)

[AggieDave 6]

I had a spinning tension knots from hell mal that ended up with a really twisted up reserve (wish we had a skyhook on that older sigma), that's not the bummer though. During all of this odd reserve deployment I couldn't get the left brake to release, the slack had wraped around the L-bar and was locked in place by the slider. That took me a few seconds to figure out (atfirst I thought it was just mis-routed and I started wanting to hookknife it).

Got it all figured out and undone, landed with no problems after that. Out of the 3 I've had, that's the most "exciting." (My fiance packed the main on that one too).

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

[dragon2 0]

http://www.skydivingmovies.com/ver2/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=603

Scary alright! Can't remember what exactly went wrong here, he did tell me once, but he says at the end, after being asked what happened: "a high speed malfunction, nothing happening at all".
He ended up with the freebag bridle around his neck for a while

ciel bleu,
Saskia

[Skypilot 0]

1500 foot reserve opening did it for me. Didnt delay long enough after a slow speed mal. Shit happens

Go big!

[jheadley 0]

One of my friends had a scary tandem mal.

The drogue was thrown unstable and the drogue bridle was wrapped around the student's foot(when i say "wrapped" I mean more like "resting on". If the student had just pointed his toe, it would have cleared). The instructor didn't know, so he pulled the drogue release when it was time, and the bag came out and just flopped around above them. Thinking it was a drogue in tow, the instructor then went to the reserve and so he fired the reserve through the main risers. The main came out of the bag and entangled with the reserve. It would inflate, and spin the pair violently, and then deflate, and the reserve would fly fine. Luckily the main was deflated when they landed.

[rhys 0]

I know a very experienced instructor who is a dzso that didn't check the gear before the jump. there was a 'new packer' that wasn't a skydiver at the time?

a mis-routed bridle led to a drougue in tow. so after releasing both ripcords the reserve was fired and had line twists. because the drouge was still inflated the line twists would not untwist. he released the brakes but the tension on the lines would not let the lines on the reserve up to make the canopy fly in full drive. he wiggled them a bit but they would only come down but not go up . he then flew at the mercy of the wind to save what possible flare he had left for landing.

he is still a dzso.

totally unavoidable and stupid. It was the new packer that packed the rig.

"When the power of love overcomes the love of power, then the world will see peace." - 'Jimi' Hendrix

[skydiverton 0]

Quote

One of my friends had a scary tandem mal.

The drogue was thrown unstable and the drogue bridle was wrapped around the student's foot(when i say "wrapped" I mean more like "resting on". If the student had just pointed his toe, it would have cleared). The instructor didn't know, so he pulled the drogue release when it was time, and the bag came out and just flopped around above them. Thinking it was a drogue in tow, the instructor then went to the reserve and so he fired the reserve through the main risers. The main came out of the bag and entangled with the reserve. It would inflate, and spin the pair violently, and then deflate, and the reserve would fly fine. Luckily the main was deflated when they landed.

Serious or feeding Trolls??

For myself, well the only rather scary mal was when I had a hardpull on the droque and had to pull my reserve when accelerating to tandemterminal.
Not extreme scary, but also not very relaxed

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Using your droque to gain stability is a bad habit,
Especially when you are jumping a sport rig

[kturnau 0]

This story was serious and almost had some very bad consequences. I have seen the video of this malfunction and it is not pretty to watch. The drogue was thrown unstable which tangled around both the TM's and student's legs. The TM kicked the drogue out but it was still caught around the student's toe without him knowing it. The pair was flying stable and you can see the TM geek the camera and acting happy not aware of the trouble that is about to happen to them both. Thinking that he cleared the drogue, the TM released it at pull time but since it was a Vector system, I believe, the drogue collapsed and did not have enough drag to depoly the main successfully. Thinking that this was a drogue in tow the TM deployed the reserve which etangled with the main. The two landed in a field next to the dropzone and neither was hurt thank God. The camera man did not try to clear the drogue from the student's, which he very much regrets now, but did try to allert the TM to no avail.

FALLATIO #13
PELT HEAD #20

[koppel 3]

[Totally Unavoidable????? ]

Surely you mean Totally Avoidable. I know that when we get a new packer (regardless of experience) I tend to be real cautious with gear checks and opening heights for the first 20 jumps or so. hey, I mean they may be rated but it could be different gear to that which they learnt on or just about anyone of a hundred small things that makes it different for them and more dangerous for us.

Always buy your packer a beer at the end of a good day

I like my canopy...


...it lets me down.

[packerboy 3]

I like this guy.

--------------------------------------------------
In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock. ~ Thomas Jefferson

[rhys 0]

Quote

Surely you mean Totally Avoidable

right you are. what a silly typo.

to not check your gear before any jump is stupid. it only takes 30 seconds.

"When the power of love overcomes the love of power, then the world will see peace." - 'Jimi' Hendrix

[Wharewaka 0]

I got 9 tandem reserverides, all nine reserves opened great, not to hard not to slow. Some older(design)reserve canopies wanted to stall before I released breaks, but heard that was normal.

Check gear, do a good exit, do handle check in freefall, pull high enough. I strongly belive that tandemmasters to often concentrate on their passengers body position instead of realizing they are the skydiver and to let a non skydiver get them instable because they don't arch is just old school jumping. Thanks

[JohnMitchell 14]

I had half my canopy collapse at 90-100 feet. Not pretty.

[kissrg 0]

Quote

I had half my canopy collapse at 90-100 feet. Not pretty.

What kind of circumstances did it happened in? And what was the tandem main?

Robert

[JohnMitchell 14]

It was an old 421 in a Vector rig. This particular one had a habit of closing the end cells on the right side, unbeknowst to me. I was base turning left onto final on a windy day, when suddenly the 4 (of 9) cells on the right side collapsed, spinning us to the right, downwind. Full left toggle was my first reaction, then I looked up to see the collapse. I applied full brakes both sides to reinflate. I was told it did reinflate, but I didn't look back up. We basically hooked/stalled in, downwind, from 90 feet or so. I told my passenger to put his feet and kness together. We were hauling ass across the ground, skimmed a pickup truck with a pipe rack on the back, and hit on a gravel road, skidding and bouncing along. I broke a rib in 3 places and f-ed up my knees. My passenger had broken femur, pelvis, bleeding, the works. He did pull thru but it was touch and go for a while. That canopy has been retired.

No, it wasn't turbulent or gusty, just windy. I jumped that canopy again under very nice, calm conditions. It kept trying to collapse. I never jumped it again.

[riggerrob 558]

15 rides on Strong 425 reserves.
14 were cutaways from partially-deployed mains ranging from bag lock to one broken line. All those reserves opened comfortably in 3 to 5 seconds.
My only painful reserve opening was at (drougeless) tandem terminal. We saw stars at high noon!

[RMURRAY 1]

Quote

so many that i lost count.....
TK

realizing that it is not practical --- how many could have been prevented if a TM packed their own gear and owned/maintained the rig???

rm

[tkhayes 126]

i have had 16 or so, for a variety of reasons - a few from packing errors, some thast I made, some that others made - some from shit-ass bad luck and some from sheer abuse of the system
TK