1st Cutaway

[taz9420 0]

Had my first cutaway this past weekend (wow, what a rush). The only thing is that I got busted (lectured) by the DZO (reserve handle still intact-RSL). Morale of the story: PULL BOTH HANDLES NO MATTER WHAT!!!!!!! Every jump day, is a learning day.

PS: Yes! Case of beer was purchased.

[Fab 0]

Glad you landed in one piece..May I ask why you didn't pull the reserve handle?....and what was the problem with the main chute?

Arent you glad you had rsl???!!! :))

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[fudd 0]

I wonder if I will be able to abort my emergency procedure if I have comed so far that I have cut away, and not managed to pull the reserve handle before the rsl pulls my reserve and 'wham' I'm under my reserve.
I've seen people come down in their reserves with the reserve handle in place saying they where under the reserve before they had time to pull it.

I think if I have started my emergency procedure, I won't be able to stop before I'm finished because of muscle memory. My guess is that this is the reason why DZO/Instructors give you a hard time when landing with the reserve handle still in place, because they think you might not have trained for plan B enough.

When the time comes that I have to cut away my main I will probably be wiser. I hope that wisdome won't come anytime soon...knock on wood....

There are only 10 types of people in the world. Those who understand binary, and those who don't.

[taz9420 0]

First of all I had one hell of a slammer. My slider came down right on my head. At this time I was pretty much out of it. I pushed the slider up and it probably knocked the left toggle loose. The right toggle stayed stowed which put me into half brakes and a pretty fast spin towards earth. By the time I had my wits about me I was 1000ft off the ground and was sick and dizzy from all the spinning. So I made the decision to chop it. The main has no visible damage.

I don't have a good excuse on why I didn't pull my reserve handle, so I won't waste your time on giving you a bad one.

Thank God for RSL's, but from now on I won't depend on them 100%

Thanks for the concern.

[skybytch 273]

Quote

I don't have a good excuse on why I didn't pull my reserve handle, so I won't waste your time on giving you a bad one.

ROFL! Good answer! Far better than my ex's when he did the same thing - "I wanted to see if it would work." It worked alright... he was pretty sorry when he saw the kink the RSL put in his reserve ripcord cable though.

You did a good job getting your head together enough just to chop in time after that opening. Remember folks, you can't always count on having your brain in 100% operating condition in any malfunction situation, especially one that starts with an extremely hard opening.