Canopy Malfunction: Two Canopies Out, Biplane (with photos)

[Jackpunx 0]

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this is not what they taught us in class.. Im not sure why.. but Im going with what my coaches tell me

Why not discuss it with your instructors and tell them the SIM says one thing and you thought you were taught to do another. You may find you misunderstood your instructors or that your instructors made a mistake. Alternatively, they will explain to you why they feel they are right and the SIM is wrong. In any case you will learn something. Don’t’ ever be afraid to ask questions!

That’s great advise and I will for sure discuss it with them.. I got my hands on the SIM through these boards.. so I have been reading it a lot..
When we discussed biplane or side by side they were very specific on how to deal with this.. they said..
Make sure the toggles match.. if one set of toggle is out.. Release the others so the they both match.. they also said in a bi plane to steer the front chute with the rear risers and if side by side to steer the rear outside risers with very little input.. and no flare..
they said if the chutes separate by 10' to cut away to avoid down plane.
that seems to make sense to me.. but after reading the SIM I will ask them for more detail in why they believe what they tell us in AFF.
Maybe its because AFF students have very little experience and when all said and done.. this might be the safest way for a student to react..
either way..
thanks for the reply..
I dont take everything I read in these forums to heart.. but .. it always puts a healthy debate in my head..
I'll bring it up on my next jump.
thanks again
Mark

[riggerrob 643]

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I've been taught to steer with the rear risers of the front canopy. I've always wondered, however, what would happen if one unstowed all four brakes and simply held two in each hand.

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

That requires WAAAY too much thinking.
If they two canopies are playing nicely together, just leave them alone. Use the bare minimum of control inputs - on the front canopy - to point towards an open field.

[sagan 0]

Just read the PD document and it is very helpful... however it doesn't ellaborate on if to unstow the toggles of both canopies on a side to side.

Thoughts? Feelings?

-Patrick

[NtheSeaOrSky 0]

My thought would be the same as for the biplane, only unstow and fly the dominant canopy. I would hope it would go back to a biplane or downplane where a cutaway would be safer. No reason to mess with a stable configuration.

Have you ever unstowed a toggle and let go and tried to pick it back up later? They like to trail behind and flap around and I could imagine this would get complicated or tricky. Maybe if I had a lot of Crew experience I might feel comfortable, but I myself think I would introduce some unneeded difficulty to the situation.

EDITED TO ADD: Go back and look at the article again. In the section on side by sides, they cover some different results to unstowing all toggles!

Life is not fair and there are no guarantees...

[Guest 1010]

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it doesn't ellaborate on if to unstow the toggles of both canopies on a side to side.

Thoughts? Feelings?

(caution - I'm a newbie too)
check out SIM Section 5-1, scroll down to Section E

Post #14 above in this thread by parachutist makes sense to me; I'd just add that with the brakes on the front canopy un-stowed, that should also help it to fly faster and stay in front.

One of AFF instructors said that two canopies side-by-side may tend to bounce or oscillate apart-together-apart etc, if you decide to chop, do so when they are apart or headed apart.

You can have it good, fast, or cheap: pick two.

[jsaxton 0]

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I've been taught to steer with the rear risers of the front canopy. I've always wondered, however, what would happen if one unstowed all four brakes and simply held two in each hand.

Lemme know how that works out for you

[Stomusky 0]

Hi, I heard about this being discussed today at skydive San Diego so I'm joining the discussion. Yes, it was me who had the pleasure to experience the two out.

I'm replying to BigSky because that's exactly what I did. Unstowed the front (main) canopy's brakes, and didn't touch the rear at all. Or I should say, I immediately unstowed the main brakes and I realized that I had two out.

I only had 33 jumps, and being unexperienced, it took me a while (5sec or so) to figure out what happened....It got to me when I saw the reserve bag escaping from me.

So, I kept my cool and decided not to touch the reserve brakes because two canopies opened very nicely and I figured I shouldn't do anything stupid. For a half of a second, I thought about cutting away the main, but then I didn't (because I didn't want to do anything stupid). I'm glad I didn't.

As you can see from the pictures, the main was in front. So I decided to use the main toggles (which had already been unstowed) to stir. I figured that front canopy will catch wind faster, so I can stir better. And it allowed me to keep good control.
As BigSky suggested, I made sure that I only make a very slow turns, and I changed my position 90 degrees to head towards the drop zone.

After that, I didn't do anything but let the two canopies glide me down. That's all I did.


I really don't know why the reserve deployed. All I did was deployed the main at 4000, and two just deployed simultaneously. Only speculation I have is that I was scrunching on the back of the small plane, and I changed my position with someone and my back was rubbing against the person.....but I don't think that will really pull the reserve pin out....so I don't know.

Anyway, after that experience, it really made me want to study more about the sport. It also made me want to buy my own rig (oh, I didn't mention yet that I was using the rental).
Today, I went to the same DZ again, and had a couple of nice fun jumps. I guess people into this sport are all crazy.

[MB38 0]

Does anybody have video of the incident? I'd love to see the landing in motion.

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

[jbrasher 1]

Hi Rob,

Middle 90's I think, I was at Elsinore and watched a just off student status jumper land 2 canopies out; he had been long on his pull and the FXC fired under 1500' just where it was supposed to. He stood it up.

I was the first one to him and casually asked him how his jump went.

He said everything went fine, but why do I have 2 sliders.

Being a visiting AFF/I I suggested that he talk to his instructor.

Red, White and Blue Skies,

John T. Brasher D-5166