2 Grommet Free-bags

[Hooknswoop 19]

Riggers- What technique and tools do you use for Vector/Mirage G3 Free-bags to pull the pull-up cord up through the free-bag?

I use a T-Bodkin with a straight closing pin on a lanyard. I put a tube stow on the pin and use it to hold the pin through the slot to keep the bodkin from coming out of the lower grommet.

Hook

[hookitt 0]

First take a middle ring from a Mini 3 ring set. Sew some binding tape on it. (Or make something like that with a rapide link)

Locking pull up cord
--------
Locking pullup cord through the bag. Take the Ring and larks head it at the bottom. (that would be where the Tubestow would be, if I was using a bodkin and tubestow.) ...Cinche it tight.

Parachute in bag close it. Push all the material to the outside as best you can. Stow the lines, and place it in the container.

Loosen the locking Pull-up cord and grab the ring and unlarks head it. Put the Reserve pull-up cord, through the Locking Pullup cord, and pull it through the bag.

Tim

My grammar sometimes resembles that of magnetic refrigerator poetry... Ghetto

[grega 0]

I do exactly as you do.
But i use normal rubber band instead of tube stow

"George just lucky i guess!"

[tlshealy 0]

I use a T-bodkin, with just a pull up cord threaded though it. But I think I'll try your method with a pin to lock it in place, maybe easier to bag the canopy.
Thanks Hook
Tad

[riggerrob 558]

I use a locking pull up cord and just tie a large, ugly knot in the bottom end.
I leave the locking pull up cord loose until the canopy is in the freebag and one side of the safety stow is stowed. Then I reach inside the freebag to push canopy fabric away from the locking pull up cord. Now I tighten the 'cord, stow the lines and lay the freebag in the container.
Finally I slack off the locking pull up cord, untie the large ugly knot and use it to pull the closing loop up through the freebag.
Steel T-bodkins disappeared from my tool repertoire a long time ago.

[councilman24 36]

I do what Rob does most of the time. Let's you precompress the bag. But when I used to use and still use a T bodkin I'd use a split ring in the end. Not a key ring but one of the softer ones used on a pin on a backpack. Always found it more convenient than a stow band.

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

[rigging65 0]

There's a very simple tool called a "through-the-bag-cord" or just "through-bag-cord" that is made just for that. It's basically a doubled length of cord with a ball-lock slider on it that you can use to tighten down the two halves of the bag once you get the reserve in place, thus maintaining the "crater" in the middle of your packjob. The right tool for the right job makes life soooo much easier.

Before you put the packjob in the bag, loosen up the ball-lock and slip the end of the cord down through both grommets. You can either tie a nice fat slip knot in the end to keep it from slipping back through or larkshead a ring onto it.

Once you've got the canopy bagged and the safety stow fastened in place, put your knee right over those two lined up grommets and rock the sides of the bag up and down. This burrowing your knee into the back will replace the pilot-chute "crater" in the packjob that's started to fill out with canopy "ear".

Now, simply push the ball-lock down the cord until it hits the bag and lock it. That'll keep the packjob proper until your ready to slip the actual pull-up cord through the other end of the loop and pull it back up through the packjob (after taking out the slip knot or ring, obviously). It's simpler to show/do it than to explain it, trust me.

"...and once you had tasted flight, you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward.
For there you have been, and there you long to return..."

[alan 1]

An older Rigging Innovations Talon owner's manual has very good instructions that can be adapted for use on the Vector and Mirage and a picture of the locking pull-up chord used. The big ugly slip knot referred to in several of the posts is usually called a figure 8 knot.

alan

[skygod7777 0]

i use a soft bodkin.

later

[slotperfect 7]

I use a locking pull up cord with a figure-8 (ugly) knot in the bottom. I compress the grommets completely together before I start packing. I also use a t-handle bodkin with a rubber band on the end through both grommets, just to give the molar shaped folded canopy a definite division in the bag to mold themselves around.

Arrive Safely

John

[freeflyerno 0]

Quote

I use a T-Bodkin with a straight closing pin on a lanyard. I put a tube stow on the pin and use it to hold the pin through the slot to keep the bodkin from coming out of the lower grommet.

Anyone got a picture of this on the web? Can't picture it in my head. It's probably because it's 5:30am and I just got off from work, but still

---
Unanswered questions are far less dangerous than unquestioned answers

[skycat 0]

he has it with him at the DZ, so I can't take a pic of it, here it is basically via paint shop. Only thing I couldn't do was put the tube stow on, but what it does is get wrapped around the hole part of the strait pin, then loop it around and over the other end of the pin.

Fly it like you stole it!

[freeflyerno 0]

Gotcha. So this doesn't actually pinch down the center of the freebag, but rather just makes it easier to keep the T-bodkin in place?
Gotta get me a way to pinch down the center. Damn I hate those Vectors and Mirages

---
Unanswered questions are far less dangerous than unquestioned answers

[skycat 0]

Quote

Gotta get me a way to pinch down the center. Damn I hate those Vectors and Mirages

PM hooknswoop, we have one of each and he has no problem getting them closed off and the reserve being tight and flat rather than bulgie like 90% of the ones that I have seen. As you can see from the picks my reserve top flap is nice and flat, and the tab doesn't bend at all to get into the slot.

Fly it like you stole it!

[freeflyerno 0]

Quote

Quote

Gotta get me a way to pinch down the center. Damn I hate those Vectors and Mirages

PM hooknswoop, we have one of each and he has no problem getting them closed off and the reserve being tight and flat rather than bulgie like 90% of the ones that I have seen. As you can see from the picks my reserve top flap is nice and flat, and the tab doesn't bend at all to get into the slot.

You misunderstand me. I don't have a problem getting the flap nice and flat. It's just that I want the two grommets to stay together to get as little canopy fabric as possible (or none, like other rigs) next to the closing loop.
I don't like seeing lots of fabric around that, as the first thing I think of is "fabric burns". I know it's been done for ages like this, but I still don't like it.

---
Unanswered questions are far less dangerous than unquestioned answers

[Craig 0]

Quote

Gotcha. So this doesn't actually pinch down the center of the freebag, but rather just makes it easier to keep the T-bodkin in place?
Gotta get me a way to pinch down the center. Damn I hate those Vectors and Mirages

I am almost postive that the new Mirage G4's have bags like Jav's. Meaning there is only one grommet in the freebag where the closing loop passes through. Still don't help with the G3 or Vectors though...