Chance of Main and Reserve both malfunctioning

[SkyDiveCoastie 0]

Whats the chances of having a main malfunction followed by a reserve malfunction...Can the reserve have a bag lock like a regular main?

Just curious..thanks again

Danny
The Sky Divin Coastie

[MB38 0]

[remember to take my posts with a grain of salt... look at the jump numbers]

1 of 44 reported deaths this year [from the Safety section of this site] came from a main/reserve entanglement.

As for a double mal... think about it. Most pack their main canopies in less than 10-15 minutes. A reserve repack will take 90+ minutes by a certified rigger. Reserve partial or total malfunctions are rare. Figures? Maybe somebody knows them, but not me.

Technically, the reserve could get stuck in its freebag. I've seen only one video in which this happened

http://www.skydivingmovies.com/ver2/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=1974

Chris Grissom cut away his main canopy which became entangled with his foot. The reserve PC became entangled with the main and the freebag didn't come off of the reserve chute. Technically this isn't a reserve total or a true baglock, it's just two-out entanglement.

He somehow managed to pull in the reserve and physically pull the canopy out of the bag. The reserve ended up with a line-over malfunction... but I doubt it was packed that way. By that point it had enough air in it that he was able to turn crosswind and land well enough that he walked away.

So... it could happen. Anything could happen.

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

[shall555 0]

Yes. S#$% happens.

However, it's like the odds of a shark attack immediately after being struck by lightning during a terrorist incident.

You can minimize the odds by remaining alert and heads-up before and during your jump, jumping gear with which you're familiar and not putting yourself in one of those "hey, watch *this*!" positions.

Reserves work. Harness/container/canopy manufacturers sweat the engineering details. USPA and others have figured out the smart way to progress in the sport.

Pay attention. Don't let your 'nads out-think your analytical capability and you just might get to be one of those 72-year old guys still jumping and teaching first jump students.

Blue skies,

shall

[JohnMitchell 16]

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Pay attention. Don't let your 'nads out-think your analytical capability and you just might get to be one of those 72-year old guys still jumping and teaching first jump students.

]

Like me!

Your main canopy is full of compromises, easy to pack, fun to fly, gets hundreds of jumps on it.

Your reserve is made for one thing, to be as reliable as a parachute can be made to be. Pull and arch, it should be okay. I trust mine implicitly. I must confess, though, everytime I chop and pull my reserve, I'm thinking "Well, I hope this one works better than the last one!"

[freelyflyn71 0]

I had the same doubts you are having now...as EVERY skydiver has had! I recommend watching a reserve re-pack the next time you have an opportunity. It will give you a better insight as to the inner workings of the gear you jump. You will see, when you watch your rigger pack a reserve, how much care goes into the job, and how unlikely a baglock is on a reserve parachute due to the differences in stowing the lines and the canopy itself (freebag on a rsv vs. D-bag on a main, etc.). It gave me a lot of confidence in my gear, and I bet it'll help with that doubt your having!

Eric

The Braver the Bird...The Fatter the Cat.

[docjohn 0]

I've been reading incident reports for 30 years and can never recall reading about a bag lock on a reserve after a properly executed cutaway (ie. no entanglement, sufficient altitude, correct body position, etc).

Your reserve parachute is far more reliable than your car, your jump plane, your bicycle, etc. Trust it. Don't hesitate to use it.
.
.

Doc
http://www.manifestmaster.com/video

[riggerrob 643]

The two leading causes of reserve malfunctions are: pulling reserve ripcord too low and failing to clear your air by getting rid of a malfunctioned main.

Both causes can be eliminated by better training and awareness.

The bottom line is: don't impact with handles remaining on your harness.

[packerboy 3]

I think there were a couple of S's and F's in that video missed by the counter (barely audible). I count the final tally around 12 S's to 9 F's. But I could be wrong.

Anytime you have a 12S:9F jump and you walk away from it.... I mean S, that's just some F'ing crazy S.

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

[FrEaK_aCcIdEnT 0]

i just now understood what the S's and F's were on the top... i had to watch it again just to try to count

ExPeCt ThE uNeXpEcTeD!
DoNt MiNd ThE tYpOs, Im LaZy On CoRrEcTiOnS!

[Tonto 1]

The chances are pretty good.

I had a pressure knot on a Tandem main, cut it away and had a pressure knot on the reserve too. It sucked, but I got it sorted before landing.

t

It's the year of the Pig.

[Suavel 0]

I had my first reserve ride on jump number 5.

So that was fun.


My main had baglock because of an unstable clear-and-pull; so I cut it, pulled silver, and I'm under white in no time. I have no worries trusting a reserve. I never really doubted it, but now I'm sure it opens.

Remember, the parachute wants to open.

[dukekala 0]

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My main had baglock because of an unstable clear-and-pull;

How could an unstable body position possibly cause a bag lock?

[billbooth 10]

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My main had baglock because of an unstable clear-and-pull;

How could an unstable body position possibly cause a bag lock?

Body contact with the deploying bag, because of poor body position, is the easiest way to get a bag lock I can think of.

[packerboy 3]

Do you think this causes more baglocks than sloppy line stowage? Or is it the combination of both that is dangerous?

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

[valcore 0]

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My main had baglock because of an unstable clear-and-pull;

How could an unstable body position possibly cause a bag lock?

Body contact with the deploying bag, because of poor body position, is the easiest way to get a bag lock I can think of.

hmmm I am glad my kicking the Dbag on deployment saturday did not cause any problems

The most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I'm from the government and I'm here to help’. ~Ronald Reagan

30,000,000 legal firearm owners killed no one yesterday.

[jsaxton 0]

Or, as Gareth says:

"Keep pulling shit until your goggles fill with blood"

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The two leading causes of reserve malfunctions are: pulling reserve ripcord too low and failing to clear your air by getting rid of a malfunctioned main.

Both causes can be eliminated by better training and awareness.

The bottom line is: don't impact with handles remaining on your harness.

[chuteless 1]

years ago, a group of jumpers were discussing cutaway verse manual deployment of the reserve at Parkman, Ohio DZ.

They broke off the conversation to go make a jump. One guy didnt show up and everyone wondered where he was.

They found his body....he elected to manually deploy his reserve rather than cutaway, and the reserve tangled with his main.

I realize this is in days when the modern equipment wasnt in ise, but a trailing malfunctioned main causes a vortex in which the reserve gets caught, entangling them together.

Bill Cole D-41


.

[gjhdiver 0]

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Whats the chances of having a main malfunction followed by a reserve malfunction...Can the reserve have a bag lock like a regular main?

Just curious..thanks again

The reserve don't know it's a reserve. It just thinks it's a main that you've been ignoring. Choose your rigger wisely, and have a plan where you leave the door and review and practice it often. Making stuff up on the spur of the moment never seems tyo pan out well.

[freelyflyn71 0]

Well said...

The Braver the Bird...The Fatter the Cat.

[packerboy 3]

I think what you mean is that it doesn't know that it is your last chance at saving your life. It does know that it is a reserve parachute.

It does know that it is an F-111 canopy (most) that is designed, rigged, and packed much neater and carefully than a main. It knows that the design was stress tested to be able to handle a terminal opening with much greater force than a main due to it's needing to be open quickly. It knows that it doesn't have cascaded lines (I think). It knows that the lines are free and not stowed. It knows that it has a springloaded pilot chute with a freebag. And it knows that it was inspected and packed by a qualified rigger on a clean table over a span of an hour or two as opposed to a dirty floor by an inexperienced sweaty packer over a span of 8 minutes in a rush to get the rest of the gear packed before the next load comes down.

That is enough for me to believe that the chances of a reserve malfunction are far far less than a main malfunction. But there is still a chance.

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

[goose491 0]

Very well put. The reserve is not the same as a main. It's chances of malfunctioning, all other things remaining equal, are quite a bit lesser.

It is my understanding that this is why we consider going straight to the reserve if having to exit real low in an emergency situation. Knowing you won't have time for two chances if there is a malfunction, you'd want to go with your best chance off the hop.

My Karma ran over my Dogma!!!

[Tonto 1]

I disagree.

I have 4691 main deployments. 18 resulted in use of a reserve, 7 of which were caused by canopy wraps or entanglements, so 11 malfunctions. Of these 11, 7 were on Tandems. This produces the following stats.

751 tandems, 7 Malfunctions. 1 use of reserve per 107 jumps
3940 "sport" jumps, 4 Malfunctions. 1 use of reserve per 985 jumps
18 reserve rides, 1 Malfunction. 1 failure of reserve per 18 jumps.

I'll need a lot of reserve rides to make them statistically safer than my main, won't I? Tell yourself what you need to hear to make it through the door - but gear fails. If you're not happy with the risk - don't jump. It really is that simple.

t

It's the year of the Pig.

[goose491 0]

<<1 failure of reserve per 18 jumps. >>

Did you make it?

Toto do you disagree that the chances of a reserve malfunctioning are slimmer then those of the main malfunctioning or just that it 'won't'.

I think it's clear that the reserve can malfunction. But I also think it's clear that all things remaining equal, the chances of it happening are lesser then on your main.

What do you think?

My Karma ran over my Dogma!!!

[packerboy 3]

Statistics are just that... statistics. You alone are not a large enough group of data to collect accurate statistics that would best describe the probability of an event occuring.

I would bet that if you took all reserve deployments to date including test jumps in which the reserve parachute was packed in a proper reserve deployment system, and all reserve rides by all skydivers; that the statistics would show a far lesser malfunction rate than 1:600'ish which is the number put out there by gear manufacturers to accurately describe that statistics gathered about main parachute malfunctions. 1:330'ish for Tandem.

I would also bet that if you exited the plane 4691 times and deployed your reserve system 4691 times, provided it was rigged and packed w/ the care involved in a normal reserve system and that the reserve parachute had on average as many jumps on it as a normal reserve that anyone would use, you would not be the owner of 11 malfunctions in your log book.

I don't need to tell myself anything soothing or reassuring about the risks of skydiving in order to have the cahonies to get out of the door. I understand the risk that a properly designed, built, rigged, maintained, and packed parachute of any kind can fail. I read the warning labels too...

I haven't been around a long time, but I have seen a number of main parachute malfunctions. I even know someone that landed in the trees w/ 3 bad parachutes over his head and lived. But I firmly believe that reserve parachutes are inherently less likely to fail. They are not designed to function the same as a main parachute.

Congratulations, you are a statistical anomoly. Add to the fact that you lived through a reserve malfunction even more so. I'm sure there is a quite a few people on that list. How many reserve deployments have their been in the history of skydiving? Also an impressive number I would imagine.

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

[billvon 2,991]

>It does know that it is an F-111 canopy (most) that is designed,
>rigged, and packed much neater and carefully than a main.

I would disagree with the "designed more carefully." Reserve designers tend to use old designs because they have a lot of experience with that design. Which makes sense, I think.

>It knows that it doesn't have cascaded lines (I think).

Nope. Most don't. My main has non-cascaded lines; my reserve does have them.

>It knows that the lines are free and not stowed.

The first two are stowed in a very similar manner to a main bag.

>And it knows that it was inspected and packed by a qualified rigger
>on a clean table over a span of an hour or two as opposed to a dirty floor . . .

I think you may have an overly rosy view of lofts.

>That is enough for me to believe that the chances of a reserve
> malfunction are far far less than a main malfunction.

I don't think you can assume that. Like Tonto mentioned, in my experience, reserves malfunction at about the same rate (if not more often than) mains. This isn't suprising; reserves are generally deployed over a wider range of airspeeds, and over a wider range of body positions, than main parachutes. As an example, I average about 1 malfunction every 800-900 jumps. Of the 200 some odd tandem reserve rides while I was at Brown, one was a malfunction.

The reason everyone thinks reserves are so reliable is that they are used very seldom; you almost never hear about a reserve mal because they don't get jumped as often as main canopies. If you designed a rig with a cut-away-able reserve, and alternated deploying your main and your reserve after a skydive, and your two canopies were a Triathalon 190 and a PD-R 193 - I would be willing to bet the malfunction rates would be _very_ similar.