Passanger harness

[tqsmile 0]

Hi all.
Was interested to hear how you all tighten your tandem students legstraps...meaning do you make them tight tight or able to say, slip three fingers between strap and leg.
When you put the harness on do you do legstraps first or last?
My fellow instuctors and I would like to hear from you all,We had a discussion about it and we differ in ways.
Lastly has anybody got a pic of the Y strap?
We want to add that to our harnesses
Thankyou

TQ
I am me and you are you, so deal with it!!!
www.skydivepe.com

[feuergnom 28]

gear up on strong - usually by the book. extend all straps to the max, close chest & bellystrap, tighten leg-strap firmly, adjust mlw, then diagonal, backstrap is last

as for tightening leg-straps: if the pax is of normal build, i prefer a snug but not to tight fit. if you get a fatty lardass: make the as tight as you can, cause the fat will compress and straps will become loose once under canopy. the last thing i'd want is a pax moving around in the harness in freefall and under canopy


pics of y-strap can be found in the latest tandem-newsletter from strong

edit 4 spelling

The universal aptitude for ineptitude makes any human accomplishment an incredible miracle

dudeist skydiver # 666

[slotperfect 7]

For most people, I tighten the legstraps snugly (as I wear them). It helps a lot to have several jumps as a passenger to know how the harness should fit. I agree with Kaspar that fat legs require the legstraps to be a little tighter, although "as tight as you can" is a little extreme IMHO. I am no Schwartzenegger, but if I crank leg straps down "as tight as I can get them," my student will pass out before they get to the boarding area.

The y-strap is a Strong Dual Hawk mod (pdf link). UPT will not build such a mod . . . prefers to turn up the throttle on education - fitting the harness properly is the answer. I have zero experience with the y-strap, but I have a great deal of respect for Ted Strong.

I do have lots of experience with the Sigma harness, with a wide range of sizes of both military and civilian passengers, with the military passengers sometimes carrying combat equipment. I can tell you that fitting the Sigma harness is not hard once you know how to do it on various body types, and that a properly fitted Sigma harness is enough to properly secure and carry your passenger (unless the body size and type dictate that they shouldn't really be jumping anyway).

Great questions!

Arrive Safely

John

[BIGUN 1,297]

Adjust the MLW for their body style & height and stick my thumbs thru the articulated hardware to find their hip bone. Tehn adjust MLW accordingly until the hip rings are a little higher, then cinch down the legstraps. Sometimes it's a little back & forth ritual until the hip rings are hip level and off to the side.

Next to last step - Full student harness JMPI (gear check)
Last Step - Have another TI do secondary harness JMPI (gear check).

We use the Eclipse Tandem rig that have both belly band and lumbar strap. I don't _think_ one can put the Y mod on any other manufacturer's harness.

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

[DualHawk 0]

Hi John.

Ted Strong and I both agree with you that increasing education is the key. The only problem is that it is not a concrete answer to potential future poor harness fitting. No matter how well any manufacturer trains thier instructors, people are still capable of forgetting something, or worse simply not agreeing with manufacturer methods, and doing things their own way. Both scenarios leave the door open, ever so slightly, for to the possibility of another passenger being ejected from a poorly fitted tandem harness in the future. The Y-Mod closes that door.

I agree with you that the harnesses work as intended without the Y-Mod when properly fitted, we and UPT both went 23 years without a single passenger being ejected from their harness, and then it happened twice in a years time. Since then though, even with increased education, I have still ocassionally seen instructors on all systems, ours, UPTs, and others, boarding aircraft with passengers improperly fitted or wearing loose harnesses....Simply throttling up education alone isn't working for any manufacturer. (There is even another thread here on DZ.COM about poor harness fitting during a tandem course, so it's even being taught incorrectly it seems.)

So, that's the story behind the Y-Mod, it's a phyisical solution that was set in place to offset the possibility, however remote, that if an instructor fails to properly fit and secure their passenger into a harness, it won't create a life threatening situation.

If anyone has any specific questions, please feel free to call me at 407-859-9317 or email me at tomnoonan@strongparachutes.com.

Best Regards,

Tom Noonan
Tandem Director
Strong Enterprises

[billbooth 10]

UPT DOES have an "elasticized" version of the "Y" mod on several rigs for evaluation. We just want to be sure it doesn't cause more problems than it solves before we require it. For instance, it could put a disproportionate portion of the opening shock on the spine if the leg straps weren't tightened in the first place, or slipped.

[riggerrob 643]

I like the Y-strap because it holds the leg straps in the correct position when students sit down, then slide - backwards - towards their instructor.

[tqsmile 0]

Shot for the feedback,one more...the belly strap,do you all tighten completely or medium?

TQ
I am me and you are you, so deal with it!!!
www.skydivepe.com

[peek 21]

Quote

Was interested to hear how you all tighten your tandem students legstraps.... [in a later post] belly strap...

I make basic snug adjustments to everything then have the student tighten them. Only a few students tighten them too much and I tell them they can back off a bit. Most do not make them tight enough and I say, "another inch." When they look at me as if to say, "but its already tight", I tell them the advantages of having it tighter. Most of them understand quite well.

For belly band, I tighten us together in the aircraft to the full tightness and reach up to make sure the belly band is, at the very most, snug. Any tighter and is is uncomfortable under canopy.

In general:
I think a lot of instructors fail to consider how much better a student can make their harness fit (either tandem or solo gear) with supervision by the instructor rather than the instructor just doing it all themselves. People who have worn a harness of some type from an occupation or another sport have a pretty good idea of how the harness should feel and where they "want things". :)