Double Total Malfunction

[Chubba 0]

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Wouldnt having a total mal (nothing out) and being in a full stand position speed him up past terminal and guarantee death. I know my little ass in a stand is in the 170 range from my average belly to earth 98mph.

Please correct if I'm wrong.

I only got 4 jumps, but I say it's fairly obvious that going feet first would be worse then belly.

Hell, even if you do a PLF, you will still be landing on your side/back @ MUCH higher speeds then belly flying.

It's not even going to be a roll, 170mph nobody could go through the full seqeuence of a PLF in a millionth of a second... they would just SPLAT.

[BIGUN 1,317]

Stevo..

I "think" the urban legend you're talking about got commingled with the one I heard while at Bragg. The one you refer to sounds like the one I heard about an Air Force guy (sometimes girl depending on the story teller) was they jumped from 10,000, had a "total," sometimes double, and landed in a swamp bed only breaking his/her ankles and was released from the hospital the next day. I never could find out if there was any validity to it (course, I really didn't dig too deep or too much at that time... was a tad busy).

Nobody has time to listen; because they're desperately chasing the need of being heard.

[BIGUN 1,317]

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I only got 4 jumps, but I say it's fairly obvious that going feet first would be worse then belly.
Hell, even if you do a PLF, you will still be landing on your side/back @ MUCH higher speeds then belly flying.
It's not even going to be a roll, 170mph nobody could go through the full seqeuence of a PLF in a millionth of a second... they would just SPLAT.

You have to consider the amount of drag from the canopy(ies). Having one canopy out there can reduce your vertical speed as much as 40-50% [insert engineering-type like Billvon, Winsor or Kallend here], two canopies... even more. Factor in that in those days, it was highly possible he could have been jumping a round main and reserve (Paracommander) so ANY air sneaking into it (or them) helped. Even upright at 60-80 mph, you're pretty much guaranteed a symphony of broken bones and spinal injuries, but it was survivable. The mantra back then was to keep throwing shit over your head. His point was that he knew the PLF had done its job because those bones were broken MORE severely than the others.

Never underestimate the power of drag.

Nobody has time to listen; because they're desperately chasing the need of being heard.

[chuckakers 425]

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It was a Golden Knight circa 1980. Had a double mal, knew he had to do a great PLF. When he hit he described the feeling as walking into a room and someone turning the lights out and getting hit with pillows. He landed in a Doctor's yard and the doctor ran ran out to help. He attributed his living to two things, the PLF and the doctor. He knew he'd done a great PLF because every one of the bones in the five points of contact were severly damaged. He spent a year in the hospital. When he was released, he was driving home and passed his old home DZ. He stopped, turned around and drove in. He said he had to make one more jump.

His name is Roger Reynolds and he lives (or did) in Indiana. I forgot to mention his Golden Knight status in my reply http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?do=post_view_threaded;post=3163260;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;.

By the way, at the time of the accident, Roger was the youngest person ever selected for the team at age 19. If I remember correctly the demo was into a high school convocation of some kind. And yes, he landed in a doctor's yard.

The BIG story that the press focused on (beyond the amazing fact that he lived) was how the doctors first said he wouldn't live, then that he wouldn't walk, and made the decision NOT to try to rehab him. His buddies (GK and SF) snuck him out of the hospital at night to the gym and helped him get back on his feet.

Chuck


previous reply:
>>> Roger Reynolds had a highly publicized double mal during an intentinal cutaway jump in the late 70'. After a year of recovery, he appeared on the tonight show, made People magazine, etc. It wasn't a double total, but it seemed that way in the whuffo press.

Roger couldn't get a capewell to release after jumping from 1800agl with a packed streamer, and had to dump the reserve into a main trailing by one riser.

Years later, Roger taught me how to do PLF's, so I've got that going for me.<<<

[JohnMitchell 16]

Sounds like you've got the story right.

I know of only 2 incidents of someone surviving a double total, one being the famous tail gunner in WWII who bailed out with no chute. The second was a paraskier in the late 70's, early 80's who deployed neither canopy on a hop and pop, documented in Parachutist. In both incidents, the combination of falling through evergreen trees into deep snow on a steep slope caused a survivable rate of decelleration for the jumper. It's the distance spent slowing down that makes the G-loads survivable. There is no way a human being will survive a double total hitting flat concrete.

[steveorino 7]

That is the story I heard while in SF. I heard the story between '78-80, most likely 1979.

steveOrino

[packerboy 3]

We have regular jumper at our DZ who survived a "triple" mal and is still jumping. I can't remember if it was a CRW jump or a work jump. (He is a search and rescue tech in the Canadian Forces). He landed with a ball of shit over his head which included his main and reserve and someone elses main. The precursor to his spectacular feat of survival was a canopy collision.

Landed in some trees and busted himself up good, but nothing really permanent.

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In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock. ~ Thomas Jefferson