Longer Bridle

[mrubin 0]

I just started flying a wing suit and want to get a longer bridle. Should I contact Mirage or are there other options?

Thanks.

"I fly because it releases my mind from the tyranny of petty things." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

[DSE 5]

Matt, there are options.

I have 9' with 31" on the shelf at S'nore, RI offers them pre-built, Eric Gallan offers them custom-made to order, and UPT has them too.
I'm sure that Mirage offers them; shop around.

[mccordia 74]

That aside...if you use a wingsuit that fits your experience level, a normal bridle length/setup should be fine for the first 150 or more wingsuit jumps.

JC
FlyLikeBrick
I'm an Athlete?

[gzimmermann 0]

Jarno, you sure have much more experience than I have. But so much for sure for guys doing conventional, not full flight pulls: I feel slight delays with my longer bridle, larger PC equipped Icon on the Ghost3 but not on the Phantom. A close friend with a Vector without the WS mod has had some hesitations already with the Phantom. Bottom line for me: A slightly longer bridle and 30-31 PC (possibly open corners on the container) can only help and do not harm even for belly and freefly jumps. What do you experts recommend re bridle length an PC size?

Add: DSE already gave a recommendation. However, the UPT staff asked us explicitly about length and size (...) when ordering a rig with WS mod recently. Furthermore at my home DZ in Switzerland we do not let people do WS jumps with rigs having no kill lines, collapsible PC.

[monkycndo 0]

ChutingStar has a good price on the PC made by Cazer. I have used both the 28" and 30" diameter and found a noticeable improvement in my openings with the longer bridle.

50 donations so far. Give it a try.

You know you want to spank it
Jump an Infinity

[DSE 5]

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Jarno, you sure have much more experience than I have. But so much for sure for guys doing conventional, not full flight pulls: I feel slight delays with my longer bridle, larger PC equipped Icon on the Ghost3 but not on the Phantom. A close friend with a Vector without the WS mod has had some hesitations already with the Phantom. Bottom line for me: A slightly longer bridle and 30-31 PC (possibly open corners on the container) can only help and do not harm even for belly and freefly jumps. What do you experts recommend re bridle length an PC size?

Add: DSE already gave a recommendation. However, the UPT staff asked us explicitly about length and size (...) when ordering a rig with WS mod recently. Furthermore at my home DZ in Switzerland we do not let people do WS jumps with rigs having no kill lines, collapsible PC.

No longer than 9', because the bridle then becomes a big drag and introduces its own problems. Somewhere here I've posted photos of a 12' bridle and problem a visitor had. I use a 30" in three of my rigs, 27" in one, and 32" in another. All rigs have been jumped with Xbirds, Venoms, V4, Phantoms, Ghost 3. I don't find a significant diff between any of the various bridle sizes. In other words, 27" or larger, IMO.

FWIW, coupled with the semi-stowless, dynamic corners/cut corners, 9' bridle, openings are generally beautiful. Unlike most WS, I don't pack grommet-up. I do put my lines to the "back" of the tray vs the bottom of the tray, but with the semi-stowless, I don't do that much any longer either.

~Gerhard, it's interesting that a collapsible is required in Switzerland for wingsuiting. Can you tell us more? Any other wingsuit-specific requirements/restrictions?

[gzimmermann 0]

Thanks for being specific and pointing to risks of a very long bridle! I am also looking forward to my semi-stowless bag which is on order.

Regarding Swiss rules for WS: We also have the 200 jump minimum. At my home dropzone there is currently no coach available with a manufacturer rating like PFC. Newbies get introduced by jump instructors (with some WS experience) to the basics and then they are sent up for their first jump. Compared to what we did: Ground school I observed was much shorter but seems to cover the basic safety aspects. And I would mostly miss the video debrief which is not available if there is no coach jumping with you. I recently had a conversation with a candidate whose rig had a non-colapsible PC and the jumpmaster/instructor pointed to this rule. Generally the rules to get the license (there is only one, not A-D) are stricter and it takes longer (being under observation in student status) to achieve it. http://www.swissskydive.org has all the rules and manuals. There are no specific limitations for wingsuiters, none at least where I jump which is also a pretty busy airport. Just the common sense to fly outside of the jump run, like at most DZs.

[LetsGoOutside 0]

Longer bridle and larger PC is good! But to a degree. For medium to large canopies, it's fine. But for smaller faster canopies, you can really feel them affecting the flight. Not so good. I jumped 120s and up with a 11.5' bridle and 32" PC for awhile. It was very close to what I ended up using for wingsuit BASE jumps. Fantastic, clean openings in full flight.

When I went down to a 107 I switched back to 9' + 28" PC because of the drag. Tried the bigger setup on a 97, as well and I could really feel it.

My experience, anyway.

[DSE 5]

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Longer bridle and larger PC is good! But to a degree. For medium to large canopies, it's fine. But for smaller faster canopies, you can really feel them affecting the flight. Not so good. I jumped 120s and up with a 11.5' bridle and 32" PC for awhile. It was very close to what I ended up using for wingsuit BASE jumps. Fantastic, clean openings in full flight.

When I went down to a 107 I switched back to 9' + 28" PC because of the drag. Tried the bigger setup on a 97, as well and I could really feel it.

My experience, anyway.

an 11.5' bridle? Even with the 32' PC, it seems drag would be a worry. I've only seen one bridle longer than 10' (with 32") and somewhere here, I posted a photo of it knotted up.
So you're suggesting that for small/high loaded canopies, the long bridle with bigger PC is preferable?

[LouDiamond 1]

This topic tends to come up every once in awhile and there are several good threads on it with some very good insight from Tom A. on the history of longer bridles and larger/smaller PCs in the BASE and skydive environment.

The short version for those who don't want to search is this: Bridles longer than 9' become potentially dangerous in both a skydiving and BASE environments and show no added improvement/benefit over 9'. PCs larger than a normal 28-30" PC for skydiving(note that I did not mention BASE) can cause other opening issues that usually have a domino effect in the deployment sequence of events.

In most cases, those who have added a larger than recommended PC and or a bridle over 9' and had problems with their deployments/openings have seen these problems go away when they reverted to using a standard skydiving sized PC and either a standard length and or 9' bridle. Moral of the story, if you are going to use a longer bridle, don't go over 9'; If you are skydiving use a standard sized PC(28-30").

"It's just skydiving..additional drama is not required"
Some people dream about flying, I live my dream
SKYMONKEY PUBLISHING

[gzimmermann 0]

So 9-30 it is!
Thanks for the summary to Lou and DSE, others for sharing their insights!

[phoenixlpr 0]

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If you are skydiving use a standard sized PC(28-30").

I use 24" ZP PC with std length bride.
I pull from full flight. Its working just fine.

I used to use 32 F111 kill-line PC and Bird-Man PC, 28" ZP and long bridle.

All of those worked just fine, I got no hesitation.

[Pendragon 1]

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~Gerhard, it's interesting that a collapsible is required in Switzerland for wingsuiting. Can you tell us more? Any other wingsuit-specific requirements/restrictions?

I think what Gerhard meant is that bungee collapsible PCs are prohibited - in the UK they're certainly strongly discouraged - but those collapsibile PCs with kill-lines are permitted. I don't think it has ever been a requirement to use a collapsible PC anywhere in Europe AFAIK.

--
BASE #1182
Muff #3573
PFI #52; UK WSI #13

[kallend 2,027]

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If you are skydiving use a standard sized PC(28-30").

I use 24" ZP PC with std length bride.
I pull from full flight. Its working just fine.

I don't like pulling from full flight - it makes me feel as if I'm going to back-flip through the lines.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[LetsGoOutside 0]

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So you're suggesting that for small/high loaded canopies, the long bridle with bigger PC is preferable?

Opposite. Affects larger canopies less.

[DSE 5]

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So you're suggesting that for small/high loaded canopies, the long bridle with bigger PC is preferable?

Opposite. Affects larger canopies less.

The "I really felt it" comment had me thinking you liked it, and wondered why.

[phoenixlpr 0]

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If you are skydiving use a standard sized PC(28-30").

I use 24" ZP PC with std length bride.
I pull from full flight. Its working just fine.

I don't like pulling from full flight - it makes me feel as if I'm going to back-flip through the lines.

I got a canopy opens slow most of the time. It feels like brake-chute deployed.

[LetsGoOutside 0]

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So you're suggesting that for small/high loaded canopies, the long bridle with bigger PC is preferable?

Opposite. Affects larger canopies less.

The "I really felt it" comment had me thinking you liked it, and wondered why.

Ah, "it" in this case was the tug/drag of the PC on the canopy.

Also, I think a lot of the bridle knots have to do with using a hackey or other "heavy" handle. I always used either a practice golf ball or a cap on the PC so there wasn't any weight on it.