Cutaway systems

[DSE 3]

Curious for a couple reasons; obviously the thread we see below, and additionally, a local person just getting into camera bought a helmet with no cutaway, and when I asked him about it, he felt "very confident he'll never need one."

I have peace of mind having one, but wonder how many people have actually tested the cutaway systems they have, and how many even have a cutaway system on their helmets.
If you do not have one, would you mind elaborating on either why you don't, or how you feel about not having one?

[Squeak 17]

When i bought my helmet it was beofre the company had developed their cut away system.
I believe the chances of an entanglement are very slim and have not bothered retrofitting one.
Having said that i do not jump camera for a living so dont do alot of jumps per year

You are not now, nor will you ever be, good enough to not die in this sport (Sparky)
My Life ROCKS!
How's yours doing?

[shropshire 0]

My 2K Composite helmet comes with one and I've ground tested it - Satis.

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[Peej 0]

I have a cutaway on my helmet, i haven't tested it on the ground.

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[mrwrong 0]

Ofcourse I have a cut away on my cam helmet. In fact this is required on camerahelmets in Sweden.

Tested it on the ground for the same reason I yank out my reserve when I have it repacked, to get an idea of the ammount of force needed to cut it free.

A cut away system on my helmet is for me as having a reserve parachute.
I don't want to use it but when it saves my life then I'm f**ing grateful!!

“The sum of intelligence on the planet is a constant; the population is growing.” - George Bernard Shaw
He who dies with the most toys, wins.....
dudeist skydiver # 19515
Buy quality and cry once!

[mircan 0]

I have tried cutaway on ground on my tonfly evo pro (early model, sidemount).
- I tried a scenario where something was stuck on camera box. Cutaway handle is on the opposite side of the box. When my friend pulled hard up on the camera box, my head was tilted right and the cutaway handle was pinned down to my neck making it very hard to get my fingers in it and cutaway (not impossible though, just hard).
- Second thing that I noticed was that with this particular setup the helmet would have hard time to come off even when the handle was pulled. This was because on that model chincup strap went OVER the cutaway bolt and INTO the helmet thus disabling the bolt to come out. Simple solution was just not to put strap into helmet hole.
- With FTP, there are no issues.
My point is that trying to cutaway helmet on ground made me realize some of the possibilities that might happen in the air.
Second point is that there are number of videos on skydivingmovies.com that picture helmet entanglements (like recent one here with brake line snagged on a ringsight ) and those things can get ugly and quite dangerous.

my 2c
blues!

dudeist skydiver #42

[pilotdave 0]

Have one, tested it, and it failed miserably. Works fine after a little modifying. I can't imagine why someone would NOT test it.

BTW, testing it doesn't just mean pulling the cutaway handle. Gotta have it under load. A lot of people believe that the regular release mechanism (without a cutaway) will work fine when they need to get the helmet off... but they don't take into account how it will work with a serious load on it.

Dave

[mircan 0]

My thoughts exactly. It was hard enough to cutaway with someone only pulling the helmet, and what would happen in case of snagged cut-away spinning canopy...

dudeist skydiver #42

[PharmerPhil 0]

I do not have a cutaway system on my helmet. But my EPs do include releasing the helmet using the regular opening mechanism in case of entanglement though (which I practice). I think of it as the difference between Capewells and a three-ring release. If I got a new helmet I would consider a more sophisticated cutaway if it wasn't too kluged.

I do think they are a good idea though. I think it is like many emergency procedures. What I do is not necessarily what I teach students. i.e., I do not use an RSL but recommend them to non-camera flyers. I use a one-handed cutaway procedure (one hand per handle) but I teach two-handed cutaway.

On a related note, I think jettisoning the helmet is just one part of your planning (a last resort). What I think it more important, and frequently ignored, is making the helmet as snag-proof as possible to start with. I am amazed at side boxes, lenses and ring sights that protrude far to the outside, and unnecessarily have places for lines to get caught.

[kefran 0]

at first i bought my FF2 just for fun video, didn't put a cutaway at that time then i had to add a ringsight and still camera so i added a cheap but effective one from Bonehead (i think ,,, not sure though) tested it on the ground worked fine ... and hell yes if i need to i will cut it the very same way that i will cut my main : even if my helmet is now representing a quite good amount of $$$ it certainly isn't enough for my life

--------------------------------------------------
I never used 2 rocks to start a fire ... this is called evolution !

[Jazzthieve 0]

Quote

I have a cutaway on my helmet, i haven't tested it on the ground.

Same here, so I can't realy vote on the poll.

[piisfish 135]

I used to not have a cutaway before my incident video here, so I had to open "normally" my chin cup and my chin strap before ditching the helmet. With a cutaway I would have saved approx 7 seconds and my Cypres would have probably not fired.

I now have a cutaway on the helmet and recommend having one.

I also recommend testing it on the ground, in different configorations, like having a pull from the side, not "just vertical" (far to easy to extract your melon from the helmet). With a side pull, you may have to pull the helmet off

scissors beat paper, paper beat rock, rock beat wingsuit - KarlM

[mr2mk1g 10]

I'd distinguish between two potential problems with helmet cutaways.

Firstly - possible hard pull as requested in your poll. No issues there with my helmet as it's a 2-ring system which reduces loading on the teflon (lolon) cable just as with your main cutaway system.

To be honest, I've not heard or seen that many systems with problems in this respect, though obviously I haven't seen them all.

Secondly - possible failure for the cutaway mechanism to work at all. Again no issues for me, but some of the systems I've seen and played with simply seize up when placed under a load.

I think that it is this second issue which is by far the more serious (in terms of prevalence) of the problems with the devices we see within the community today.

[DSE 3]

Quote

Have one, tested it, and it failed miserably. Works fine after a little modifying. I can't imagine why someone would NOT test it.

BTW, testing it doesn't just mean pulling the cutaway handle. Gotta have it under load. A lot of people believe that the regular release mechanism (without a cutaway) will work fine when they need to get the helmet off... but they don't take into account how it will work with a serious load on it.

Dave

Agreed, I didn't define what "testing" really means.
When I bought my FTP, one of the video guys at our DZ essentially suspended me (holding most of my weight via the helmet) and had me cut it away. it was much harder than simply pulling it.
Practicing the cutaway are part of my EP routines on each climb to altitude.
I'm not surprised, however, reading that there are folks with cutaway systems, having more than a few jumps, that have not taken the 2-3 mins it takes to test the system on the ground. What about lubricant if your system needs it? Or clearing the foam or liner away from it so it functions as expected?
Me...I'd be worried about expecting it to work when needed if not tested on the ground first.

[velocityphoto 0]

I put graphite on my ftp hinge .And i read here somewhere that someone had no problems with the ftp cutaway system . I can argue this a bit. The system has to be shimmed properly for it to work at all. I had major problems with 2 of my ftps not cutting away and i put a post up about it somewhere along the way here.
Make sure it is practiced a few times a season .

A friend will bail you out of jail , a REAL friend will be sitting next to you in the cell slapping your hand saying "DUDE THAT WAS AWSUM " ................