tandem reserve incident

[highspeeddirt 0]

a few years ago , at an unnamed dz, we had an incident that i have never seen addressed in these forums.after cutting away a spinning main mal, TM deployed reserve on a strong dual hawk system .upon releasing the d brakes, one brake loop caught on the corner of the reserve connector link(standard L type seperable link),resulting in a spin. TM quickly realized what had happened and managed to free it.has anyone else ever had this happen??

[riggerrob 643]

That entanglement was routine on the Pioneer High-Lifter 270 mains installed in the first Vector Tandems.
We eventually solved that problem by orienting L-Bar links so that the outboard "knuckle"was on the top, while the smooth "elbow" was on the bottom onboard edge - where the steering line rubbed against it.
Steering lines don't snag on the smooth "elbow."

[DualHawk 0]

Hi,

Hopefully I can address the issue that you described.

Since 1995, the rear (toggle) reserve risers for the Dual Hawk have had a piece of Type 1 webbing sewn across the riser, just below the L-bar to prevent the reserve steering line brake loops from possibly creating the scenario you have described. It was considered a possibility pre-1995, hence the addition of the Type 1 webbing. Strong Enterprises has not received any incident report regarding this issue.

The Dual Hawk manual (page 7), under "Layout and Assembly", references the need to pass the brake lines through the Type 1 webbing. Page 8 has a picture of it as well. (I attached a picture here as well to this post.)

To answer the question, if it has happened to anyone else, we have no record of it here at the factory. Our database goes back to 1988 for tandem incidents.

If you have any specific questions or if you have access to the incident report and would like to forward it to me for our files, please feel free to call me (407) 859-9317 or email me at tomnoonan@strongparachutes.com.

Best Regards,
Tom Noonan
Tandem Director
Strong Enterprises