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cpoxon

Had a total malfunction this weekend

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Craig,
while I may have ridden it out a bit longer if I had opened higher, I think you did what you thought was right and handled it fine. There is another Birdman-I on my dropzone that had three VERY long bridle in tow and baglock situations that he had to chop from due to his very low vertical speed. One of the three had him scrambling to get his three rings to activate long after pulling the handle! You see, there was not enough drag to pull the main off, so he ended up firing his reserve just as the thing cleared. He was VERY lucky. The boy has around 100 flights, so it was not a freaky newbie thing. Modifying his bottom flap cured that problem once and for all.
In your case, the only thing I can say for certain that I would have done was chop both arm wings after you cut away and fired the reserve.
As for the pillow reserve, I have one on my pond rig just because that is the way I bought it from my teammate. My reserve ride two Sunday's ago was my first BirdMan chop and the first time I had to use a pillow cutaway. I did not like that pillow at all; it was a bitch to pull, no lie. You MUST peel them before you go yanking on them.
Chuck
My webpage HERE

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Thanks Chuck
> One of the three had him scrambling to get his three rings to activate long after pulling the handle!
I remember that a while back when posted on here and rec.skydiving?
>In your case, the only thing I can say for certain that I would have done was chop both arm wings after you cut away and fired the reserve.
It's funny, I was talking to a friend today about the mal and he reminded me of a conversation we had when I first started jumping the BirdMan suit. Apparently I told him I would cutaway the wings before deploying the reserve but I have no memory of this. It feels like I've been a bit vague on this and need to sit down and think about this again. Like with you mal Chuck, touching my wing cutaways with respect to using them was not part of drill run-through, but reather checking they were just fully seated and mated before exit. Something else I need to think about
>I did not like that pillow at all; it was a bitch to pull, no lie. You MUST peel them before you go yanking on them.
When I visualise my reserve drills, I see myself peeling the velcro on both handles. I have no recollection of what I did during the mal. I guess my muscle memory kicked in, but I certainly don't remember being hindered in any way. Reminds me of the time I was practicing for my first freefall on static-line. One of the guys held onto the teflon cable to simulate astiff pull expecting me to initiate my reserve drills after a couple of tries, but nothing was going to stop me pulling the ripcord and it came out first time and the guy was left with friction burns to his fingers. I'm very happy with a reserve pillow. :-)

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