It's the little things that add up

[freefall138 0]

My reserve is attached with metal connector links and has the standard risers.

[Pancake 0]

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> you need to understand that rear risers at night in
> a lighted landing area is a hell of alot safer than a
> reserve deployment and landing into a dark
> unknown

Well, I would care to suggest that is NOT "always" better...

Given the two scenarios that were presented...IMHO, it IS always better to land on rears in a lighted landing area rather than a dark unknown. You have far more experience than me... and MOST of us...please expound.

Okay, here's a similar real life example:
Current, experienced jumper who has performed numerous night jumps finds himself stuck downwind with a broken steering line. The last time he had a broken steering line (during the day), he chose to cutaway and land his reserve. Many discussions took place and many said 'why didn't you just land rear risers?'

With this in mind on the night jump he chose not to cutaway but to land with rear risers. He did not get much penetration into the wind, and ended up needing to land off doing an excellent job of avoiding obstacles and setting up for landing. However, when he flared wtih the rear risers, it seems that he stalled the canopy which turned hard to one side injuring his leg and shoulder. It will be at least 6 months until he is able to jump again.

Fortunately, he landed near a house whose owner called an ambulance, he was found quickly and all will be well. So is being downwind and landing off enough of a reason to cutaway and fly a reserve? Possibly. In this case, the jumper had gotten advice from a prior jump to use rears with a broken steering line, but he still didn't fully understand the difference in the flare (easier to stall with rears) and had not practiced these approaches during the day.

The original poster says that he specifically DIDN'T use rear risers because he was aware of the possibility of stalling and had never tried it before. Sounds like a good reason to me. There is no guarantee that even if he stuck with rears that he would have made it back to the 'lighted landing area.' He still may have found himself landing off.

I would suggest that both these jumpers practice extensively with rears so they have another tool to be prepared to deal with these situations, but i do not fault the decision to use a reserve in this situation.

Question for the original poster:
You say you weren't prepared for the wind at 4000-2000 feet since you hadn't jumped during the day. Did you speak with others on the load/the pilot/those who did jump that day to get an idea of what the winds were before you manifested?

[livendive 8]

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Also, you need to understand that rear risers at night in a lighted landing area is a hell of alot safer than a reserve deployment and landing into a dark unknown

If he couldn't get any penetration with his reserve with the brakes unstowed, I'm guessing he'd have been holding or backing up under his main with the brakes stowed. Additionally, without a lot of night jump experience to fine tune his depth perception, and no rear riser landings with the brakes unstowed, much less stowed, a stall would have been very possible. Stalling into the dark would have likely resulted in a worse outcome than this did, so I'm not going to criticize his choice to chop.

I'd say the next order of business should be to configure the gear appropriately for whether pulling the slider down the risers is desired. It should either be very easy or nearly impossible, not somewhere in between. Second, he should work on riser flying with brakes stowed and unstowed, and riser landings at least unstowed. With properly configured gear, the number of situations in which one would be risering in a canopy with brakes stowed are (or should be!) so few that the risks of doing them intentionally might outweigh the gain.

A curiosity question for the original poster. Did attempts to clear the problem on the main include pushing up on the slider grommets or just pulling down on the toggles? In my experience, the former is easier than the latter.

Blues,
Dave

"I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!"
(drink Mountain Dew)

[mattaman 0]

If you hit a solid fixed object with your head or center chest at 25mph, especially directly into it in the dark, your probably going to die instanty. Go drive down the road in your car, imagine putting your head out the window, and running it into a solid wall, tree, post, building, etc.
Students and experienced jumpers do it once in a while, and they die.
Flying with rear risers is part of the student program.
If you can't fly your canopy with rear risers, you need to learn, before your doing night jumps with your canopy.
But thats not the reason for my post, its the attitude of safety first, fun second. This attitude needs to be there on every jump, especially night jumps. When you train for a night jump, you need to train into account, what happens if, I didn't even hear that they had an alternative landing area picked out for this situation, what a concept.
Quite often people die or get hurt in the sport not cause they didn't hear how they could have prevented in before hand, but cause they chose an attitude of not hearing it. People who defend decisions that need a bit more relfection are not your friends, they set us up thinking they are making us confident, but real confidence is the person who can critically reflect, where we don't want to, where it hurts a bit. This is the person that grows.
I'm not critisicing, I am pointing out something that could save his life, and maybe someone elses.
On the next night jump, I'll bet he handles it different from beginning to end, this could save someone else too. Good luck, matt

Those stuck in maya, seek to be seen.