Skyhook reserve deployment

[HydroGuy 0]

Had an uneventful 4 way freefly and a nice soft opening today. But my slider had locked up on my left toggle. I tried pulling it down to stow it, but I think I just made it worse. Tried pushing it up...no way. Grabbed both toggles and tried to clear the brakes. Not happening. I goofed with it a little more, and decided at 1600 feet that I didn't feel like landing with one unstowed toggle and one rear riser.

Had a hand on each handle an chopped. Had a reserve canopy over head before my reserve handle had cleared completely...maybe 50 vertical feet. Felt like a soft PCA'd BASE jump. Put my handles in my mouth, located my fluttering main, picked a landing spot, practice flared and stood up on a dirt road in some field.

Went to the loft and checked the toggle. The slider grommet had grabbed some sloppily stowed brake line, plus a wide spot in the toggle larkshead, and just became lodged just below the toggle grommet. The pin stowed toggle was locked down, preventing me from wiggling the toggle at an angle or anything. I made it worse trying to stow the slider. And I shouldn't have unstowed my right toggle while I was messing with the left...it gave me another factor to deal with.

Weirdest thing is I just started stowing my excess brake line because I didn't like the way it sat around my secondary riser covers...it looked like it could ustow a toggle or knot up somehow.

Get in - Get off - Get away....repeat as neccessary

[stratostar 5]

Why didn't you just restow your right toggle?
And fly wih your risers.
At least all's well that ends well and you got a new "no shit story" to tell.

~

you can't pay for kids schoolin' with love of skydiving! ~ Airtwardo

[pilotdave 0]

How do you stow your excess brake line?

Dave

[AFFI 0]

Congrats!

Fun, isnt it?

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

[HydroGuy 0]

It honestly never crossed my mind to re-stow my right brake...and having to counter that turn and losing both hands to mess with things was the final straw that made my decision to chop.

Oh yeah...I had my reserve repacked April 9th...

Get in - Get off - Get away....repeat as neccessary

[MrBrant 0]

eek. I've never tried to re-stow a brake line on-the-fly. i don't think i'd want to.



I would probably just wrap the unstowed one around my hand a few times,

then practice rear-riser flares all the way to the ground - lol. (that's what I did when i broke a steering line on my Tri - it payed off)


oh, and congrats on living there, Hydro

[BenHall 0]

See Kurt your first mistake was going skydiving instead of hitting up the local objects . . . Your dp is much safer, and no pesky cutaway procedures!

[JohnMitchell 16]

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Why didn't you just restow your right toggle?
And fly wih your risers.

How about wrap the right brakeline around your hand a few wraps, then grab the rear riser? That's easy too.

[AFFI 0]

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Why didn't you just restow your right toggle?
And fly wih your risers.

How about wrap the right brakeline around your hand a few wraps, then grab the rear riser? That's easy too.

What if you wrap that line around your hand a few wraps then decide to cutaway and forget to unwrap the line? With all the excitment could such a mistake be a potential?

[namgrunt 0]

why question anything

you decided to save yourself.. knew what to do and did it.

do not look back..

now beer time and the rigger gets a bottle of his favorite

..

59 YEARS,OVERWEIGHT,BALDIND,X-GRUNT
LAST MIL. JUMP VIET-NAM(QUAN-TRI)
www.dzmemories.com

[davelepka 4]

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why question anything

you decided to save yourself.. knew what to do and did it.

Easy. Read the incidetns forum. Reserves fail. Rear risers and PLF's work.

[HydroGuy 0]

I actually wish I had the confidence in my skills under my new canopy at that moment to rear riser it...but I didn't. I am not very current under my new 139. The last month and a half, the only skydives I've made were hop and pops with my 266 BASE canopy...I literally felt tuesday and wednesday I was re-learning to fly my skydiving canopy...to the point of doing some cold 12.5k hop and pops on tuesday.

I've landed a 149 on rears...but it was with both brakes unstowed in full flight and I planned on it ahead of time.

I've been thinking of going to Lodi and doing like 50 hop and pops in one week to get that kind of confidence under my new gear.

Get in - Get off - Get away....repeat as neccessary

[HydroGuy 0]

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See Kurt your first mistake was going skydiving instead of hitting up the local objects . . . Your dp is much safer, and no pesky cutaway procedures!

LOL...I was actually having a blast doing freefly jumps for the first time in a while. We had just finished off the last jump building a four way HU stair after a linked HD exit.

Apex still hasn't finished rebuilding my harness...

Get in - Get off - Get away....repeat as neccessary

[hookitt 1]

People have died from control line malfunctions and that very thought was in my mind when it happened to me. There were 2 options and that choosing one needed to happen quickly.

When I first bought my Xaos, the brake lines were HMA. The toggles that were on my risers were a little softer than they should have been and not the toggles I normally use. I was in the saddle well above 2,500 feet. I stowed the slider grabbed the toggles, one released, one didn't.

I held the opposite toggle down and very aggressively attempted to clear it and ran out of time. Releasing the toggle and pulling the cutaway handle happened at the same time.

Landing with the brakes stowed on a canopy with a fairly high wing load requires precision control and a good PLF and some luck. The canopy will stall very easily.

If you want to ask the same question about why didn't I take a wrap and land on rears, now's the time. I could see doing it, but the ground was dry and very hard, the controllability was edgy, and taking a wrap with HMA lines doesn't feel very good. The decision was easy. I tried very hard to clear a malfunction on a canopy that did not pass the control check, reached my cutaway decision altitude and did just that.

My grammar sometimes resembles that of magnetic refrigerator poetry... Ghetto

[stratostar 5]

You bring up a very good point, for the record I wasn't knocking the dude for cutting away, but putting out another fix to the problem for others to keep in mind.

However with so many hotrods in the sky these days this fix may not be a good idea to try.
Now if your jumping a slower canopy and time and airspace to attempt restowing a toggle would allow a try, it is worth a try.

I would never tell anyone they were fucking up by going to plan B, it is their ass up there dealing with what ever and I'm safe on the ground, it's not my place to bash them.

With that said, I have done it and know it can be done.

~

you can't pay for kids schoolin' with love of skydiving! ~ Airtwardo

[tbrown 26]

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People have died from control line malfunctions and that very thought was in my mind when it happened to me. There were 2 options and that choosing one needed to happen quickly.

And as you well know, there was a fatality right at Perris recently that was caused by a steering line problem. Cutaways are a personal decision and you did what was right for you, no matter what anybody else coulda/shoulda/mighta done.

But I'm even more interested in your Skyhook experience. Like a lot of people, I use a standard RSL on my rig (a Javelin). I'm not sure how you could really gauge a distance like 50 ft. in midair, but you're obviously impressed with a VERY quick opening. Did you guess at 50 ft because you could see your cutaway main really close ? More story on the Skyhook, please.

And good work. Ain't it great to be alive ?!

Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

[kelpdiver 2]

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why question anything

you decided to save yourself.. knew what to do and did it.

Easy. Read the incidetns forum. Reserves fail. Rear risers and PLF's work.

and on the other side of the fence, people have died because they spent too much altitude working on a problem before cutting away, or doing rigging work in the air instead of on the ground.

The skyhook inproves the odds with a faster deployment, but isn't a total solution. As it was, he went slightly past the recommended decision height.

[HydroGuy 0]

More on the skyhook?

I read 1600 on my altimeter, it is mounted on the inside of my wrist. This was the last time I looked at my altimeter what so ever. I dropped my left hand down to the D ring, let go of the toggle that I was holding in half brakes, grabbed red and pulled. About half way through my right arm extension, I felt myself falling...I actually felt the loss of pressure on my leg straps, not any falling sensation. I then punched with my left. There was zero tension on the reserve handle. Before I had cleared the reserve cable, I felt leg strap pressure again. I brought my hands immediately up to my risers and looked up at the same time. I was viewing this goofy looking slider and this immaculately white canopy flying perfectly.

It felt like my PCA'd BASE jumps...but less violent, due to the slider and shallower brake settings I am assuming. But the time felt the same. That is where I came up with 50 feet...

Get in - Get off - Get away....repeat as neccessary

[javajunkie 0]

The skyhook is pretty amazing! I watched a few intentional skyhook cutaways at the convention and was blown away at how quickly the jumper went from cutaway to a full-inflated reserve. I'm definitely thinking about getting a Micron for my next container after seeing that.

[980 0]

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It felt like my PCA'd BASE jumps...but less violent, due to the slider and shallower brake settings I am assuming. But the time felt the same. That is where I came up with 50 feet...

1. a BASE canopy takes more than 50ft to start flying from a PCA

2. you are descending under the main before cutaway, so you start with vertical speed

I seriously doubt it took 50ft from chop to flying reserve and I wish people would stop claiming these ridiculous numbers for the Skyhook.

It's a great device, but claims like these are undermining it's credibility.

[HydroGuy 0]

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I seriously doubt it took 50ft from chop to flying reserve and I wish people would stop claiming these ridiculous numbers for the Skyhook.

It's a great device, but claims like these are undermining it's credibility.

I chopped from a fully inflated main in 1/2 brakes flying into the wind and had a flying canopy over my head in like 2 maybe 3 seconds...how much vertical distance can that really be?

I can't think of a single thing I would gain by "claiming these ridiculous numbers" which are"underming it's credibility"...so whatever.

Get in - Get off - Get away....repeat as neccessary

[980 0]

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I chopped from a fully inflated main in 1/2 brakes flying into the wind and had a flying canopy over my head in like 2 maybe 3 seconds...how much vertical distance can that really be?

well smart guy, let's see if we can help you make a rough estimate:

first, find out what your descent rate is in half brakes, under the main canopy (I'm guessing anywhere from 10 - 20 ft/sec)

second, find out what your descent rate is under your reserve with the brakes stowed (I'm guessing anywhere from 10 - 20 ft/sec again)

now, you start at the descent rate under your main, directly after cutaway you will accelerate until your reserve has hit linestretch and bottom skin expansion starts, now you will decellerate to your descent rate under your reserve as the reserve inflates and pressurises

so if your reserve descends at around the same rate as your main, you should be able to see that you will cover a vertical distance greater than that descent rate multiplied with the time from cutaway to flying reserve, and that does not factor in accelerating after cutaway and also disregards the gradual decelleration from reserve deployment

so, with a conservatively low estimate of 10 ft/sec descent rate under your canopies with the brakes stowed, you will have covered 20-30 ft vertical in the 2-3 seconds you think it took to cutaway and have the SKyhook deploy your reserve

that would be the case if you never speeded up due to cutting away and the reserve started flying the moment you cut away

now obviously it will take more altitude than that, so you are left with 20 - 30 ft to get to linestretch (know how long your lines are?), get the reserve out the freebag and have the reserve deploy completely and start flying, if your 50 ft guesstimate is to be correct

would you care to retract your 50 ft guess now?

if you give me enough data on this (and we can easily obtain valid data) I can calculate the minimum vertical distance your deployment could have taken for you, as can anyone with a basic understanding of physics and math

evidently you have neither

so why don't you just say that it felt like 50 ft instead?

instead you came up with the entirely brilliant: 'so whatever'

[stratostar 5]

Why don't we just ask the man Mr. Booth for some real data from the huge amount testing done with the system instead of turning this into a giant pissing contest!

Anyway who really gives a shit, unless your planning on chop'n at 100ft.
The system works! Hydroguys lives to jump again and that is all that really matters, no need to bash the dude for posting his experience with the system.
JMHO

~

you can't pay for kids schoolin' with love of skydiving! ~ Airtwardo

[HydroGuy 0]

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if you give me enough data on this (and we can easily obtain valid data) I can calculate the minimum vertical distance your deployment could have taken for you, as can anyone with a basic understanding of physics and math

From the length of your post that is basically you just talking shit to me, you seem to have lots of free time...so go do it. My canopy types, sizes and wingloadings are listed in my profile. I was at Perris, about 1 PM, so you can go look up density altitude and anything else you might find relevant.

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evidently you have neither

Did this make you feel good?

Get in - Get off - Get away....repeat as neccessary

[980 0]

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Why don't we just ask the man Mr. Booth for some real data from the huge amount testing done with the system instead of turning this into a giant pissing contest!
~

actually, I have done that through PMs, but Mr. Booth stopped responding when he didn't like my questions anymore

I am not debating whether the skyhook works or whether it is a clever and useful system, it certainly works and it is a clever and useful system.

I am not bashing Hydroguy for posting his experience, I am merely taking exception to his statement of 50ft from cutaway to flying reserve.

What kind of a hard deck is 1600ft anyway for someone with 300 and something jumps?

I guess it's OK because he's a basejumper and that somehow makes it safer for him.