non free fly friendly rig for wingsuiting?

[keithbar 1]

so if you have an older rig that is definitely considered non free fly friendly. due to a not super secure main pin cover and some exposed Bridal. as long as the velcro is in good shape. And the Boc. is good and tight it should be ok. Right? I mean the older rigs were designed with the track off at the end of a RW jump in mind. were they not?

i have on occasion been accused of pulling low . My response. Naw I wasn't low I'm just such a big guy I look closer than I really am .

[monkycndo 0]

Unless you are doing hardcore acro in the WS, an old rig like a velcro Vector2 works just fine.

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[keithbar 1]

that was my thinking to . glad to see somebody with tons of experience agrees with me

i have on occasion been accused of pulling low . My response. Naw I wasn't low I'm just such a big guy I look closer than I really am .

[SkymonkeyONE 4]

As was just stated: so long as you are not doing a lot of hard-core acro you are just fine with "older" rigs.

[surfers98 0]

I have a beat-up old Vector 2 with velcro riser covers and it works fine. Just mind the velcro degrading and try to stay off of your back.

[keithbar 1]

so I am thinking about setting up an older talon. with at least a 190 main and maybe up to a 230 or so. depending on what i find over the winter. so to lift a good size canopy of me. a big guy with a big for it's day. but not so big now suit. (a raptor. )and needing to be able to go as big as i want in the future a 30" or 32" pilot chute and 9' 10' 12' bridle? and cut. ? or dynamic ? corners. I read all the old war about it but it was a while back

i have on occasion been accused of pulling low . My response. Naw I wasn't low I'm just such a big guy I look closer than I really am .

[monkycndo 0]

Keith, I'd say go with a 30" ZP or 32" F-111 PC. Bridle length is the new argument. I think 9' is fine. Others like Lurch had deployment issues when going to the mega suit and the longer bridle seemed to fix it. The longer the bridle, there is more material dancing around that can get looped around the handle of the PC. For that matter, suggest a PVC tube for handle with ends either taped/corked/stuffed with light foam so a finger won't get stuck. If you prefer a hackey, it should be as small and light weight as possible attached tight against fabric of PC.

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Jump an Infinity

[surfers98 0]

+1. 8'-9' bridle is fine, longer creates problems. Dynamic corners are a great idea if they can be retrofitted to help reduce the likelihood of line-twists.

[lurch 0]

Note:
When I first tried the "way, way, WAY beyond Apache-scale" Albatross Project suit it was immediately evident a 10-foot 28" F-111 was not going to work. Anticipating this, but wanting to see HOW badly it didn't work, I tried it, initiating deployment at about 6,600 feet. It was a 1,200 foot fight to get a canopy out.

I had to take the thing head-down to break the burble lock. Once established, that burble lock kept the PC trapped on my tail even after I folded in a ball.
The old "kick the PC out of the burble" trick I briefly used with an Apache/8.5 foot/28" combo did not work on a suit of this scale. I was simply batting the thing around in the burble with my heels. The suit was so damn huge even folded in a ball the resulting burble kept the PC thoroughly stuck in the center till I went headdown and erased the entire burble combined with reaccelerating toward terminal.

Not an experiment for the timid.

I got back to Tony and reported the results and what I thought I needed.
Major props to Tony for his support of the project, he dashed off to the shop and built me a 34" ZP 12-footer with BASE mesh for that extra bit of traction.
The handle is also apparently a BASE thing... a small, hollow plastic ball with a bunch of holes in it, laced down to the PC at 4 points. Effectively impossible to wrap or knot the bridle around it. After deployment during packjobs I find that ball deeply embedded in the center, sucked up against the end of the bridle by the kill line.

It has worked well since jump 1, with zero issues related to knotting or tangling regardless of fallrate. I -can- still undeploy the entire thing by pitching at the suit's default cruise... If I simply fold and throw with no acceleration lead-in it will suck the whole thing back and leave me with a pile of bridle sitting on my tail and the PC milling around in the mess. Perfect setup for a knotted or choked off PC.

But all I have to do is fold up in a ball and drop. PC comes off clean, no knots.
Some of my lack-of-knot may be a result of having evolved a procedure where I drop awhile before throwing, thus avoiding or at least minimizing exposure to the problem of the PC stirring around mixed up with the bridle. However I've spent enough time playing around with the edges of this that if it was gonna tie in a knot easily it would have done so by now.

I've also had Larry Chernis build me a PC variety-pack for future upgrades, a 36, 38, and a 40 inch with normal mesh and PVC pipe handles- stuffed with foam, extra-wide binding tape through the tube nailed down at both ends. I haven't used these yet- they're in reserve for when I'm going to need them for the A-II 2nd-Gen Albatross which is currently on the drawing board.

Bridles longer than 10 feet -can- be used reliably, you just have to pay extra attention to the handle construction details. Larry built me exactly what I asked for in handle details and I'm looking forward to finding out how well the PVC handle works with this.
I don't expect to be using these till the next suit in the series is built. When I do I'll post the results here somewhere.
-B

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