Question about my cutaway

[chigbee 0]

So I had my first cutaway this weekend and I can’t figure out what may have caused it. Here is the rundown, second jump of the day, uneventful freefall, clear and pull @ 3500’, in the saddle with a fully functioning canopy by 2800’. I fly the canopy with no problems down to 1400’ at which time I initiate a turn which causes my canopy to go into a violent turn resulting in line twists. In the span of probably less than a second my lines have made 1.5 complete revolutions, I release my toggles which does stop the spinning but at this point I check my altimeter and realize that I am just about at 1000’ and make the decision to chop. I was sitting in a big beautiful canopy @ 600’.
I think I made the right decision to chop, I absolutely did not want to land a canopy with the line twists, and though I may have been able to kick out of them who knows.
My toggle turn was not a hard turn, I did not bury my toggle nor was it excessively fast. The only conclusion we could think of was that I was passing through 2 layers of air and somehow it just caught something weird. It was a sunny day about 75 degrees with light winds, not very turbulent at all.

I still owe beer because i am in Utah and it was the lords day so no alcohol sales, but I am good for it

[MrBrant 0]

did anybody at the DZ see it? Those would be the people to ask - it's hard to guess causes over the internet.

That being said - where is the stall point of your canopy in the toggle stroke? It almost sounds to me like you might have stalled half the canopy. That can cause funky stuff to happen like line slack, and easily cause spinning line twists.

[yardhippie 0]

You induced line twists at 1400'. Weather or not you think you make a radical toggle maneuver, i havent seen a canopy just spin up on a light turn on a light wind day. IMO, you made this happen.

What is your hard deck, i dont know anyone with a hard deck of 1000' or below. If your jump numbers are correct, I would seriously look at deciding on that hard deck and stick to it.

Surely someone at the DZ saw this and could speak with you about it. We can sit here and speculate all day, but we werent there. Often times its not how quickly you pull a toggle, its how quickly you let it up, and in relatiion to how soon after you've pulled it down. Its easy to induce line twists with a toggle.

Part of skydiving is the canopy flight, take the time to learn it, up high. Have a plan and stick to it.

Blue skies.

Goddam dirty hippies piss me off! ~GFD
"What do I get for closing your rig?" ~ me
"Anything you want." ~ female skydiver
Mohoso Rodriguez #865

[quade 4]

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The only conclusion we could think of was that I was passing through 2 layers of air and somehow it just caught something weird. It was a sunny day about 75 degrees with light winds, not very turbulent at all.

Without -seeing- it with my own eyes, it's nearly impossible to tell for certain what happened, but if the conditions are how you describe them, -my- first thought would be "Dust Devil."

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[chigbee 0]

I do have a hard deck of 1800'. And I will be the first to admit I screwed up if I did. But honestly I did not do a radical turn at all, I brought my toggle no lower than a few inches below my chest and I wasn't trying to do anything exciting, just turn around.

When you say stick to my hard deck are you saying I shouldn't have chopped or that I should have been flying more conservatively at that altitude? my jump #s are correct this happened on my 54th jump.

Unfortunately no one witnessed this it happened very quickly and there was another cutaway on the same jump.

[BIGUN 1,307]

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I release my toggles which does stop the spinning but at this point I check my altimeter and realize that I am just about at 1000’ and make the decision to chop.

Please consider a round-table discussion with your Instructors and review USPA SIM Manual; Section 5-1(E): Partial Malfunctions - Section 3

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3. At some point during descent under a partial malfunction, it becomes too low for a safe cutaway and you must deploy the reserve without cutting away.

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

[chigbee 0]

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3. At some point during descent under a partial malfunction, it becomes too low for a safe cutaway and you must deploy the reserve without cutting away.

[sparkie 0]

i was taught: below 1000ft go str8 to reserve and dont cut away first. (as much fabric as possible theory)

I'm guessing thats why you felt 1000 as the "hard deck" ?

IMO the forum isnt really the place to second guess yourself in this case and with your # of jumps. Although some of the guys here have an awefull lot of experience and they mean well. I would just stick with your instructors comments and leave the finer points people bring up here for later, when you have a better understanding of them yourself. At least thats what I would do. Better spend your energy on the next jump, using what you have learned, instead of dwelling on one that didnt go as planned.

Just my 2 ct. @ 80 jumps ;P

[BIGUN 1,307]

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So do you believe that I should not have cut away? The instructors I talked to thought I made the correct choice.

My apologies if you took my response as dissention of your actions. You acted and you lived. My response was intended exactly as written - to discuss alternates of choice with your Instructors about being at =/< 1000' and should you find yourself in that situation again (hopefully not). For you, what is that "some point?" And, what would you do? The round table discussion is a great tool in our learning arsenal for everyone at the DZ to learn from the actions of others, alternates of choice and mitigating risks.

Edit to Add: I re-read your first post because I didn't remember your saying you had discussed it with your Instructors which was not in there - hence, the suggestion to talk with them.

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

[DSE 5]

From what I saw and felt, I think Quade is closest. Chigbee is a very conservative pilot, FWIW, there is a layer in approximate level to where Chigbee described the collapse, and he was transiting a wet green pasture to a dry brown dirt area.
I'd been on two previous loads, and one post-cutaway load, and previous loads, there was turbulence around 2K. I wonder if turbulence coincided with turn, resulting in the spin-up, or if there was actually a spin in the air. We do see dust devils, but not often over the green area.
Although I didn't see Chigbee's actual cutaway (I was watching another cutaway, ironic there were two on the same load, the other pilot an instructor with thousands of jumps), I did see where Chigbee had cutaway due to his floating main within a second after he'd chopped.
Was it the right call? The altitude he was at suggests not. On the other hand, he also might not have been able to kick out quickly enough. In this particular situation, he acted quickly and not only survived, but walked away from it.
Everyone, from DZO down, felt he'd done the right thing given his choices. I don't know if I'd have done the same, I wasn't the one in the harness.

Proud of you, Chigbee! And congrats for getting right back up immediately, but you shoulda stayed long enough to pack the rig you borrowed from me.

[quade 4]

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We do see dust devils, but not often over the green area.

Come to Perris!

It's the ones that have formed over the clean runway or the grass that you -can't- see that are especially dangerous.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[DSE 5]

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We do see dust devils, but not often over the green area.

Come to Perris!

It's the ones that have formed over the clean runway or the grass that you -can't- see that are especially dangerous.

Been there, done that. No thanks, I like ours where you can see the dirt in them.

[AFFI 0]

Hd of 1800 with 54 jumps?

Enlighten me.

You mention releasing toggles at 1,000, do you mean unstowing?

Rule fo thumb - do not preform radical manuevers below an altitude you are not willing to cutaway from.

Mykel AFF-I10
Skydiving Priorities: 1) Open Canopy. 2) Land Safely. 3) Don’t hurt anyone. 4) Repeat…

[swoopgaz 0]

This is not an uncommon occurance on square canopies in the 190-130sqf categories. especially when lightly loaded.IN my opinion of what happens purely by seeing it happen a couple of times is when you do a radical turn on a big canopy like that is that the canopy starts the turn and dive quite fast but then wants to slow up very quickly, a lot slower then what the body stops the turn at, thus inducing line twists. i always recomened to my students on these canopies as their first canopy to take it easy below 2 grand

[JohnMitchell 16]

At 1.05, it wasn't too lightly loaded, IMHO.

Was your airspeed low when you initiated a turn? From slow flight to sudden turns can initiate line twists more easily.

I don't think 1000 feet is too low to chop, especially in that situation. I wouldn't be happy about it, but I've seen it done successfully a number of times. If you chop that low, make sure you pull your reserve immediately and arch. Don't screw around trying to get stable.

[chigbee 0]

Proud of you, Chigbee! And congrats for getting right back up immediately, but you shoulda stayed long enough to pack the rig you borrowed from me.

[chigbee 0]

You mention releasing toggles at 1,000, do you mean unstowing?
.

[pfloyd 0]

This is a jump you walked away from, so you must have done something right!

My drinking team has a skydiving problem

[staysafe 0]

Look man, none of us were there. You had a problem while pretty low and survived. Good for you. The way I see it, my decision altitude is 1800 feet. If I have a problem below that, I will cut away down to 1000, below that, it is a canopy transfer. I would have done what you did. This scenario is also why I have a skyhook. It is best to stack every odd in your favor ( and yes, I have had a cutaway at 1500 that was my fault...skyhook worked great, I learned a lesson). In my opinion you did the right thing and survived, you are also doing the right thing by trying to figure out what happened. Stay Safe...

[VTflyer 0]

I saw you once I noticed another main canopy floating away (i'm the one that jumped with you 20 minutes later), my attention was on the first cutaway of the load

Did you ever find out if there was an issue with your main?

[thedarkside 0]

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So I had my first cutaway this weekend and I can’t figure out what may have caused it. Here is the rundown, second jump of the day, uneventful freefall, clear and pull @ 3500’, in the saddle with a fully functioning canopy by 2800’. I fly the canopy with no problems down to 1400’ at which time I initiate a turn which causes my canopy to go into a violent turn resulting in line twists. In the span of probably less than a second my lines have made 1.5 complete revolutions, I release my toggles which does stop the spinning but at this point I check my altimeter and realize that I am just about at 1000’ and make the decision to chop. I was sitting in a big beautiful canopy @ 600’.
I think I made the right decision to chop, I absolutely did not want to land a canopy with the line twists, and though I may have been able to kick out of them who knows.
My toggle turn was not a hard turn, I did not bury my toggle nor was it excessively fast. The only conclusion we could think of was that I was passing through 2 layers of air and somehow it just caught something weird. It was a sunny day about 75 degrees with light winds, not very turbulent at all.

I still owe beer because i am in Utah and it was the lords day so no alcohol sales, but I am good for it

Did you conduct a canopy controllability check (I like to call it Triple C's) after opening? The first thing that came to my mind was that you had a tension knot and when you buried a brake line the knot wouldn’t allow the line to retract, creating your spin and line twists. Therefore attempting to kick out of the twist would of rendered you useless as you had a brake line stuck. I've seen this before and it resulted in a chop. Cheer Mate!

Keep going faster until the joy of speed overcomes the fear of death.

[SabreDave 0]

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i was taught: below 1000ft go str8 to reserve and dont cut away first. (as much fabric as possible theory)

That sounds crazy.........................
Is this something they teach everywhere these days?
You could do half of a style set from 1,000 feet

SabreDave

[AFFI 0]

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Triple C's

???

Mykel AFF-I10
Skydiving Priorities: 1) Open Canopy. 2) Land Safely. 3) Don’t hurt anyone. 4) Repeat…

[thedarkside 0]

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Triple C's

???

Canopy Controllability Check
(Look left, turn left 90*, Look right, turn right 90*, determine stall point) If you need to input more than 50% opposite toggle to counter a turn or the canopy stalls prior to 50% brakes then the canopy is considered uncontrollable and cut-away procedures should be initiated.

Cheers!

Keep going faster until the joy of speed overcomes the fear of death.

[Andy9o8 2]

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This is a jump you walked away from, so you must have done something right!

Not really directed to either you or the OP, but I think this is an over-used expression, especially when spoken to, by or in the presence of novices. It's fine to give a some props to a novice who's handled an EP and is a little bug-eyed from having looked The Reaper in the eye. Experienced jumpers hopefully understand that being lucky enough to have a good result "this time" does not necessarily define a sound practice. It may or may not be that, viewed objectively, what the OP did was a good course of action; I'll let others (like the instructors at his DZ) decide that. But just as sometimes you do can everything right and it still bites you, sometimes you manage to make it out OK despite your errors. Actions that are "not the best idea" are still that, despite the outcome, and should still be identified as such and corrected, so that they're not repeated, either by the same jumper or the other impressionable novices around the bonfire.