TI's : Have you had a mal on a tandem yet?

[timmyfitz 0]

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make sure your brake lines are untwisted. you have plenty of time under canopy for this.

Not a good idea.

[tkhayes 126]

and I am willing to bet that Bill Booth himself denies in court, anything that is not in the manual - as would any manufacturer I expect

[tkhayes 126]

why not a good idea? I do it every jump. look up, see the steering line twisted. spin the toggle on my finger a few time to untwist. that simple. takes 10 seconds.

does not need to be perfect, but if you do it every jump, the packers will not have to worry about a spun-up line, and for that matter, the next person to use the gear will not have to either.

[diablopilot 2]

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i dont beleive in an eliptical (or at least a very elliptical) canopy for tandems.

Really? So you're not jumping the Icarus anymore?

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You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.

[Andy9o8 0]

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Sorry M. Goose. My earlier post should have said Sigmas are intended to only be flat packed according to UPT. My bad.
Bill Both told me that personally.

So how do you propose to reconcile that with what's in the manual? It does seem that Bill is aware of threads on here dealing with him or his gear, and occasionally even makes a rare post or two. Maybe when He's aware of this thread He will come here and clarify.

But until The Word thus comes forth, I agree with those who've said that the DZO is playing with legal fire for not having his rigs packed according to the manual - especially since by definition tandem rigs are intended to be (co-)jumped by whuffos; and it's probably the case that whuffos are more likely to sue over skydiving accidents than more established jumpers who consider themselves to be part of the skydiving community.

[riggerrob 558]

I quit counting after 15 tandem mals, mostly on Strong F-111 canopies (Master 425 and Master 520), mostly in California.
A couple were bag locks and there were several tension knots, but most were from torn canopies or broken lines.
Torn canopies were caused by desert sand and combined with hard openings.
Tension knots were far more common when Strong tandems had Dacron lines. The cure was to walk the lines up two or three times to remove any twists, tangles, assymetry, etc.
Mals were rare when Iron Mike packed, but we always had a string of mals with every new packer.
For example, I suffered a step-through last year - with a new packer - and she was gone the next week.

Remember that F-111 tandem mains were cut from the same patterns as reserves and opened HARD!
I eventually learned how to pump out tension knots.
The last time I got a tension knot, I elected to land it beside the bowl. We both walked away from that.

[billvon 2,400]

I had 3 tandem mals within about a year, but they were on the old F111 Strong canopies, and those things were nasty. Once we switched to the SET's the problems went away.

[MotherGoose 0]

Turns out tandem mals are WAY more common than I expected. Thanks for sharing this info guys.

I was a bit phased but back in the saddle quickly after the first one. The second one really bugged me though, I slowed down and jumped tandem way less for a while. Then a couple weeks ago, I was in the plane on the ride up telling my camera guy that I was wigged out for a while but I'm feeling better again because some time had passed. Don't I mal on that very load AGAIN. Worst one of them all too. I hope Im not overreacting but its bothered me a lot. If I can't have fun on a tandem because all Im thinking about is that damn canopy ride and if its going to open right, then Im not going up. That being said, I plan on doing some this weekend and getting back at it. I was hoping that my string of bad luck would end at 3, because the tandem mal rate sits at around 1/1000 I was told. But hearing how many mals some of you have has got me thinking !

I'll be talking to the rigger on the mat and making sure everyone is untwisting brake lines regularly !

You think you understand the situation, but what you don't understand, is that the situation just changed.

[Rdutch 0]

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What if the DZO is absolutely convinced that at some point, somewhere, Bill Booth went on record as saying that Sigma mains should be flat-packed?

I like the idea of stowing the excess brake line at the cascade with an elastic. Another DZ I jump at does that with Precision mains.

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I wonder why the sigma 340's dont have packing tabs if they are supposed to be flat packed?

I packed in DeLand, home of UPT for years and never heard that sigma's should be flat packed. I also packed for PD's customer service/test jump department for years and we never flat packed Tandem mains, we always PRO packed.

The Dropzone I work at now did over 9000 tandems last year and we had 3 tandem malfunctions. And we pro packed every one of them. One malfucttion was an entanglement where you set the brakes, one tension knot (precision canopy) and one was line twists. We never do the rubber band trick, where the slack is stowed with a rubber band at the canopy, and we have 3 precision tandem mains.

Line twists usually start with the line stows. I've watched hundreds of openings, and most of them happen as line stretch happens, before the main has even came out of the bag.

Nice clean even line stows are a good start. not too big, and not too small. Also make sure the rig is even when you pack. Look at the risers are they even? Before, and after you lay the canopy down? Also a good guide for how much excess to leave is the risers, you want at least as much excess as the length of the risers, a little more is ok also. Another thing to check is the flap on the riser covers, with the non magnetic riser covers you should put your risers on top of the middle flap (the one marked place main risers on top of this flap). If you dont then sometimes the risers will hang up when this flap is opening, especially if they both dont open at the same time. This could cause line twists because the risers wouldn't be even when the canopy is deploying. Ive seen on new rigs people land with both flaps unopened because they packed the risers under both flaps. I know its simple but trust me, Ive caught packers not doing it the way its supposed to be done.

Ive also heard of a few times, that letting the student deploy for you has caused line twists, because its harder to keep flying straight when you have a student twisting and usually tring to look for the handle. We had a girl TI that got line twists every time she had a student pull for her last year.

How old are your drouges? A worn out drouge will have less extraction force this could cause your bag to flip flop as its extracting from each stow. About 10 years ago I had a series of malfunctions, and we found out the F111 pilot chute was so worn out that you could breathe through it no problem. I would pitch, and it would slowly release from line stow to line stow, causing the bag to spin back and forth. replacing the PC fixed the problem.

I dont think that flat packing or pro packing is the cause of your line twist problem. my money would go with line stows. Watch some of the video's of the openings that Malfunctioned and see if the bag is spinning while it reaches line stretch.

Hope this is helpfull.
Blue SkiEs
Ray

Ray
Small and fast what every girl dreams of!

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[rhys 0]

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Really? So you're not jumping the Icarus anymore?

Icarus Tandems are quite square. they are elliptical by defintion but compared to a sigma tandem they are quite square. At least last time I looked which was about 2 hours ago.

Sigma tandems are overly elliptical, they over steer and I personally don't like them.

If I had 3000 tandems on sigma and only a handful on icarus, i would probably think the opposite.

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

[rhys 0]

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and I am willing to bet that Bill Booth himself denies in court, anything that is not in the manual - as would any manufacturer I expect

UPT don't make sigma mains, performance designs do?

PD would write tha manaul would they not?

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

[tkhayes 126]

PD might make the canopy, but it is part of the Sigma system. UPT publishes the manuals, PD does not have such a manual for the Sigma main. They do have a service bulletin for the reserve on their website, but apparently nothing else.

I expect that PD makes the stuff, the support, use, and operations of it are up to UIPT and they will answer to that.

[rhys 0]

I see...

thanks for that.

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

[skydived19006 4]

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The DZO has agreed to start "looking into" alternative packing methods (in light of the recent spate of mals I would imagine), and he is interested in the drop hook PRO pack. Any word on which is better, shoulder or hook ? I have never personally used a hook.

We pack our tandem canopies over a hook. It tends to be slower, the lines stay evenly tight packing over your shoulder. Over a hook you'll always spend time pulling even tension on the lines before laying the canopy down. We pack over a hook because it's easier, and never or seldom in such a hurry that one or two minutes makes a difference.

I have something over 2000 tandems all on Icarus or Precision. One malfunction being broken suspension lines on what seemed like a normal opening.

I've had a handful of line twists that required work to extract ourselves. It sometimes takes a "technique" to do with a tandem main in full flight, especially if you're heavy. Never cut away from line twists though, I open above at 5,500 so have time on my side!

My opinion is that Dacron line lends it's self to tension knots.

You could do what I did, buy your own DZ and all the sudden you're making all the decisions!

Martin

Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else.

AC DZ