Scary Opening

[tbrown 26]

First, you did the right thing going for your handles. You were thinking and not panicking, and evidently were very well trained if you found your hands on your handles and aren't sure how they got there. That's what all the training & drills are for. And you sound like you maintained your altitude awareness, so good for you again !

You most definitely did not have a soft opening, as you yourself describe the eventual opening as a violent one. Sounds like your canopy didn't want to come out and play. The Sabre2 isn't known for being snivelly, I've tried them a few times and found them to be rather quick but comfy openings. Now some canopies do snivel a lot and are well known for it. Especially the Spectre, if you jump one of them you should expect a lengthy, but SOFT opening. And after a few jumps on a snivelly canopy, you can learn to identify things going on with your opening, like the center cells inflated with slider plastered to the bottom of the canopy and end cells "struggling" to get free. There's some order to it, it doesn't all look like crap. An opening that really looks like crap probably is and that's what yours sounds like.


You don't HAVE TO take it down to your hard deck either. If it looks that bad, lose it. Your hard deck is your LIMIT, you absolutely go to handles immediately if you're not happy by your hard deck. It's not uncommon for a ball of crap to change it's mind and stage a sudden, funky or violent opening.
But you can't wait for it to happen, you're burning up altitude much too fast.

You did well, you had a valuable experience. You lived and you learned. Bravo !

Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

[Jen1129 0]

Thanks for your reply!

Quote

You most definitely did not have a soft opening, as you yourself describe the eventual opening as a violent one.

Yep, I have had soft openings and this felt different... at the point when I reached for my cutaway it felt like it wasn't opening at all.

Quote

You don't HAVE TO take it down to your hard deck either. If it looks that bad, lose it.

I estimate I was within half a second of my "beer" cutaway. I was definitely not planning to ride it down to my hard deck... I knew I was losing altitude pretty quickly. I don't know what happened to make it eventually open (someone speculated it was my change in body position when I reached for the cutaway handle). Wish I had it on tape!