Misrouted RSL

[JackR 0]

Had this rig show up at gear check during Lost Prairie this week. Wanted to share the community how dangerous inattention can get.

Packin' Jack
42nd Lost Prairie: The Ultimate Answer to Life, the Universe, and Skydiving
25 Jul - 3 Aug 2009
2007 photos: http://www.skydive.com/prairie/pages/prairie.htm

[stratostar 5]

Looks like you need to call Star Id. Sure looks like a rookie mistake, or maybe they were watching the packing video and not what they were doing.

you can't pay for kids schoolin' with love of skydiving! ~ Airtwardo

[diablopilot 2]

Handwriting is different and the location is missing.

But DAYUM! Who looks at that and says "Wonder what those rigs are for?"

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You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.

[stratostar 5]

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Handwriting is different and the location is missing.

Well I'll be.... You and your young man's eyes.
But yea if you pack many of those rigs it's kind of hard to miss the rings when you put the ripcord in the housing and it comes out at that flap.

Pretty basic. I bet the RSL would have still worked, but I think there is a good chance it could/would have slid up and hooked the housing, and at that point, would it have stayed or let go???

Jack, good job catching that. Let us know if your told to fuck off or if they are nice about you contacting them.

you can't pay for kids schoolin' with love of skydiving! ~ Airtwardo

[RiggerLee 61]

Just one comment. It's not about it catching on the housing. The key is there must be a ring between the RSL and the pin. It's there to redirect the pull horizontally so you don't bend the pin. Yes, there were issues with this in the past. It was only later when rigs like the Javelin came out that they started putting two rings on there. When the Dolphin came out there was a lot of talk about catching the housing. I'm not sure how big that issue truely is but at the time we saw a spert of rigs where people were putting the RSL below the ring next to the pin. They had frogoten the real danger.

PS That's one of the reasons I'm not wild about the sky hook.

Lee

Lee
lee@velocitysportswear.com
www.velocitysportswear.com

[hackish 8]

Ok, here is a newbie question... anyone got a pic of how it should look on that type of rig? I'll look at the student gear I use tomorrow and study it a bit closer to make sure I understand what's wrong there.

-Michael

[MB38 0]

It should look more like this. Granted this is a different kind of rig, but the routing concepts are the same.

AFAIK. I'm not a rigger, so I may very well be an idiot.

I really don't know what I'm talking about.

[stratostar 5]

Just look at the Op's photo, the ring around the ripcord should be between the two rings on the top flap. Get it, got , good!

Oh and yes Lee, I get your point, but I was guessing the bent pin would still be pulled you would hope if it was your rig and you don't have a weak pin from the bad batch that might snap, but the tacking may not bust free and should it not and the ring not pop off the housing you are still trailing a ball o shit over head.

you can't pay for kids schoolin' with love of skydiving! ~ Airtwardo

[stratostar 5]

Yea that look right.

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I'm not a rigger, so I may very well be an idiot.

Yes you are! You had that "red dot" dude seal your rig last time I use one of those it didn't work....

you can't pay for kids schoolin' with love of skydiving! ~ Airtwardo

[MB38 0]

Heheh... you mean people don't usually seal their packjobs with wax?

I really don't know what I'm talking about.

[skydiverek 63]

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The key is there must be a ring between the RSL and the pin. It's there to redirect the pull horizontally so you don't bend the pin.

From Bill Booth:

"Static line guide rings are a relic from the days of pin-through-cone main static line rigs, where they were absolutely necessary. The pin the Vector RSL pulls directly is a "curved" pin in a soft loop, so no guide ring is necessary. I just put it there so I wouldn't have to explain why I didn't put it there. Before the Skyhook, the RSL guide ring did no harm. But with the Skyhook, there is a chance some careless rigger would run the Skyhook lanyard (as well as the ripcord) through the guide ring. The Skyhook would then try to pull the entire bagged reserve canopy through that tiny little ring, resulting in a broken Skyhook lanyard (but an otherwise normal reserve deployment). That's why I removed it on Skyhook installations. "


Form Kelly F. from VSE:

"Keep in mind that when an RSL gets used, you will generally be suspended from the main risers (a bag lock would at the most still have you face to earth), so the likelyhood of the RSL pulling more than perpendicular to the path of the pin is pretty slim. Then add in the fact that most reserve pincover flaps have tuck tabs on the side of the flap that will help direct the RSL and you can see that the guide rings may actually be unnecessary.

We still install one on our rigs, though."

[Jwelborn 0]

Did you ask the owner of the rig if he/she ever noticed the rsl routing during a gear check? If I was missing something like this on my gear checks for 4 months, I would want someone to show me how to check the rig properly.

The supreme irony of life is that hardly anyone gets out of it alive.
Robert A. Heinlein

[UDSkyJunkie 0]

Thanks for bringing attention to that error... more people need to be able to recognize that kind of stuff instead of assuming their riggers/packers/instructors are incapable of error.

Potentially fatal errors I have personally caught:

- Chest strap mis-routed
- RSL clip attached to largest ring of 3-ring
- Main bridle routed out the bottom, pinned, then into the top and back out the bottom, guaranteeing a PC in tow
- 3-rings mis-routed (loop through middle & small ring at the same time)

The last 3 of those were within the last 2 months or so. Our local master rigger recently opened up someone's reserve and found clamps STILL ATTACHED to the canopy

Learn about your gear, people... in the end, you're responsible for saving your own ass, and the fact that it's someone else's fault and/or you didn't know any better isn't much consolation if you're dead.

"Some people follow their dreams, others hunt them down and beat them mercilessly into submission."

[RiggerLee 61]

Dear Booth

Don't get me wrong. I'm not down on you. I think the sky hook is a very interesting system and in perticular would be excelent for tandoms. I used to jump a Sorsorer that you stole the idea from and applaud your sucsess in adapting it to a springloaded pilot chute with normal emergency proceadures. Some thing that no one else had been able to do.

Perhaps you can clarify some thing for us and correct my miss conceptions of your new reserve system. It may be that others have also failed to grasp the intricasies of your design.

If you have full confodence in your "curved" reserve pin to pull from odd angles, as unlikely as that senaireo my be, why did you feel the need to introduce your new and improved BIGFATSQUAREPOSPEGPENTHATEVERYONEHATESBECOUSETHEYCAN'TSHUVEITTHROUGHATIGHTLOOPTOSAVETHERELIVES. If it was not to insure that you would break eather the reserve loop or the RSL before bending the pin then what was the thought process behind this inovation? It seemed to appear around the time you started selling the Sky Hook with out the guide ring for the RSL.

If I might humblely suggest one small improvement to what is with out doubt one of the most advanced designs on the market, is there any thing preventing you from perhaps putting just a bit of a point on the damn thing so you can push it through the f#%king loop?

A devoted fan in awh of your brillence.

Lee

P.S. I did once see a pin bent 20 deg on an RSL deployment. We have reason to beleave that the RSL was below the ring. His other rig was.

Lee
lee@velocitysportswear.com
www.velocitysportswear.com

[riggerrob 643]

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Dear Booth

Don't get me wrong. I'm not down on you. I think the sky hook is a very interesting system and in particular would be excellent for tandems. I used to jump a Sorcerer that you stole the idea from and applaud your success in adapting it to a spring-loaded pilot chute with normal emergency procedures. Some thing that no one else had been able to do.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Have you ever looked at an ADVANCE harness/container, made in France?

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[riggerrob 643]

Lee

P.S. I did once see a pin bent 20 deg on an RSL deployment. We have reason to believe that the RSL was below the ring. His other rig was.

[stratostar 5]

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Let's face it folks, guide rings may have been important when we were converting military-surplus, four-pin, brass-cone, containers for use as civilian, static-lined mains, but the need for guide rings has faded.

While that maybe Rob, but you know as well as I do that if it is on a TSO'ed rig and the manual says to use it, and this jumper would have gone in, the FAA would have been knocking on someones door.

And that is the bottom line!

you can't pay for kids schoolin' with love of skydiving! ~ Airtwardo

[DocJames 0]

Have you ever looked at an ADVANCE harness/container, made in France?

[diablopilot 2]

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f you have full confodence in your "curved" reserve pin to pull from odd angles, as unlikely as that senaireo my be, why did you feel the need to introduce your new and improved BIGFATSQUAREPOSPEGPENTHATEVERYONEHATESBECOUSETHEYCAN'TSHUVEITTHROUGHATIGHTLOOPTOSAVETHERELIVES.

Because Sigma Reserve pins were regularly being bent in the field, by riggers closing containers too tight.

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You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.

[Jeffrey 1]

Eric Fradet patented a system for Main Assisted Reserve Deployments (MARD) sometime between1993 and 02.

In 1998, the French company producing and selling the ADVANCE harness/container with Eric’s MARD system was Parafun. But that company is now under new ownership and is called Basik Air Concept.

Patrick Deayardon had a prototype of the early Eric Fradet MARD system and I adapted one to his Vector 3 prototype back in 94 or 95. I’m not sure if he ever used it.

This French Parafun system was shown to the U.S. public during the 1999 San Diego PIA Symposium. I believe Mike Truffer wrote an article in skydiving about it.

And by the way, the SkyHook is only one of many ways to cleanly accomplish a Main Assisted Reserve Deployment.

Jeff

[kallend 2,098]

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Our local master rigger recently opened up someone's reserve and found clamps STILL ATTACHED to the canopy

Learn about your gear, people... in the end, you're responsible for saving your own ass, and the fact that it's someone else's fault and/or you didn't know any better isn't much consolation if you're dead.

How will learning about my gear help me diagnose a clamped reserve hiding behind a rigger's seal?

...

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

[jumper03 0]

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f you have full confodence in your "curved" reserve pin to pull from odd angles, as unlikely as that senaireo my be, why did you feel the need to introduce your new and improved BIGFATSQUAREPOSPEGPENTHATEVERYONEHATESBECOUSETHEYCAN'TSHUVEITTHROUGHATIGHTLOOPTOSAVETHERELIVES.

Because Sigma Reserve pins were regularly being bent in the field, by riggers closing containers too tight.

riggerlee took the words right out of my mouth.

And if you bend that pin now, you've done some work!!

Scars remind us that the past is real

[diablopilot 2]

The problem with making a point on those pins is that they are not "machined" but stamp cut and then tumble polished.

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You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.

[sundevil777 102]

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The problem with making a point on those pins is that they are not "machined" but stamp cut and then tumble polished.

That doesn't explain why it can't have more of a point. It would just be a little more expensive to provide a process after the stamping to get a bit of a point.

People are sick and tired of being told that ordinary and decent people are fed up in this country with being sick and tired. I’m certainly not, and I’m sick and tired of being told that I am

[diablopilot 2]

It would add a machining step adding significant cost. I haven't found any real need for a more "pointy" pin.

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You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.