Racers are freeflying DEATHTRAPS !

[skymama 37]

LMAO, Ray! I should have known that was you!
Andrea
The brave may not live forever, but the timid may not live at all.

[alan 1]

Quote

and the reserve time is the fastest out there

I've seen/heard this comment before. It seems to be a repeat of some marketing promo by Jumpshack because I have never seen any reliable data to support it. Who did the tests? When? How were they conducted? How was "reserve time" defined for the tests? What rigs were they tested against? Where are the results published?
I'm not trying to be rude but I think if it is true, then people should be aware of it and have the data available. That is one of the benefits of a moderated forum, people should be a be to find accurate, reliable information and sometimes that means examining or questioning comments that are often taken at face value.
alan

[PhreeZone 20]

By the same token I've heard varoius claims about their "Fail safe" harness. Some have said that it is one unit of webbing and others are saying that it is pieced together in a few spots. I'm wondering if this is true or just some marketing lingo that they are using. I don't jump a Racer and there are few Racers at my DZ so I can't personally inspect one. Could a rigger or company rep tell me if it is truely a one piece completly "Fail safe" harness?
Cause I don't wanna come back down from this cloud... ~ Bush

[rhino 0]

I am not a rigger but I can confirm one piece of webbing goes through the entire harness.. There is an article on JumpShacks web site you can check out.
Blue Skies and Smooth Rides!!
http://www.aahit.com

[PhreeZone 20]

I'm seeing where they say harness's need to be fail safe, but never that their harness is in fact fail safe. And since that article is 5 years old, I'm not sure how up to date it is any more.
Cause I don't wanna come back down from this cloud... ~ Bush

[rhino 0]

The meaning of the term failsafe has not changed.. It means if there is a primary stitch failure anywhere in the harness the jumper will not be ejected from the harness.. basically.
Blue Skies and Smooth Rides!!
http://www.aahit.com

[moloney 0]

Howya Barney
For a man who has recently converted up to paragliding its nice to see you're still into stirring up skydiving debates.
I can vouch that the Racer Container you're selling is in good condition but the small 135 Esprit main canopy on it and the pins in your leg might also be putting people off buying it!
By the way we also talk about beer on the Irish skydiving group email.
Flare Early and Often.
Eamonn Moloney

[riggerrob 643]

rhino,
You have fallen for Jump Shack's advertising hype.
Racer harnesses were never built from a single piece of webbing. That notion relates to an experimental harness that John Sherman built back in the 1970s.
Current production Racer harnesses are built from 6 or more major pieces of webbing:
2 X Main Lift Web Type 13
1 X horizontal back strap/upper leg straps Type 13
1 X V backstrap/rear reserve risers Type 8
2 piece chest strap Type 8 and Type 13
If the stitching fails at the shoulder joint (MLW, V back strap and rear reserve risers) you will fall out of the harness. Mind you that joint is so over-strength that it has never happened.
If a Racer harness has hip rings or staggered hip joints, then it contains even more pieces of webbing and more critical sewn joints.

[billvon 2,991]

>>and the reserve time is the fastest out there
>I've seen/heard this comment before.
Give Sandy Reid at RI a call on this. He has the original story about that test, and John Sherman's resulting "proof" of fast Racer reserve openings.
From my experience, Reflexes open as fast as Racers, if not faster. This makes sense since the total drag on the Reflex catapult/reserve PC combo is a little higher than the total drag on the Racer reserve PC - I tested them by driving around with the PC's on the end of a pole sticking out of my car.
One problem in quantifying this is that there are so many variables. Reserve opening time from a flying canopy, a stationary release, a hop and pop, or terminal velocity? If it's a cutaway from a flying canopy, what's the airspeed of the canopy? What altitude? Is it the time from pin extraction to slider all the way down, or time until the reserve begins to open?
-bill von

[rhino 0]

Here is your answer from John.. I'd put my $500 on a racer,, Rhino
Dear Robert,

This guy should see the video "Cutaway" it has a sequence of a Racer cutaway. The deployment is in about 2 seconds.
Additionally, he must be a new comer and has never see our poster of the 2 second cutaway. Additionally, we have a double
cutaway rig which he is welcome to use if he promises to do at least one cutaway with the RSL and video and his own main
canopy. The reason for the RSL is to take the amount of freefall time from release to pull out of the equation. The method of
comparison is "Time". Time from pilotchute release to full canopy. Canopies do make a difference but we commonly do it in
2 to 2.5 seconds. Anyone who has witnessed a Racer reserve deployment knows this to be true. He should ask the
competition for their results and watch them squirm. They will assert that we can't do it and then assert that they can do it
as fast. Several weeks ago I challenged Mark from the RW Shop to video a cutaway and then give me the reserve he used
and I would do the same. I bet him $500 that we would do it in half the vertical distance. He hasn't responded and I don't
believe he will. The formula for converting time to distance is 1/2AT^2 + 2T. Newton wrote this one.

If the guy on DZ.Com wishes to see a sequence of the competition that is difficult because they are ashamed to publish
their performance. However, the Relative Workshop has a sequence in their Vector II sales video. It is a sequence of Niki
cutting away over Deland with the camera angle from the cutaway canopy. He is using a Swift reserve and at 4.98 seconds
with the reserve still sniveling the frame changes. In a later video they have leg mounted a camera pointing into a convex
mirror with a digital altimeter adjacent to the mirror. They talk about the altimeter being a "precision" altimeter. In fact the
read out is in meters and the update rate is every 2 seconds. Put a watch on it and take the data for yourself.

I hope this is enough for you. Just remember what John Ruskin said. "It is impossible to win an argument with an ignorant
man"

John
Blue Skies and Smooth Rides!!
http://www.aahit.com

[PhreeZone 20]

Robert... did you get permission to publish this letter? If not thats a serious breach of netique to do this.
And Bill know's his stuff.... otherwise I'm sure HH would'nt let him be the moderator of the Saftey and Rigging areas. Vendors and gear sales people always are trying to convince you that their product is better. Its called marketing. Until an outside body confirms what the companies are saying.... I won't believe anything from anyone on most topics. He comments on the Vector 2 video.... the Vector 3 is a different beast and probally is'nt the same opening as a Vector 2. The Catapult from Reflex should cause line strip due to its double pilotchutes, this should also lead to WAY faster reserve deployments then anything else.
I packed my reserve for a snivel, It'll take longer then another reserve to open and I'm perfectly happy with that...I could have packed it for a 1/10 of a second opening but I did'nt.
And the video is "Breakaway"......
Cause I don't wanna come back down from this cloud... ~ Bush

[billvon 2,991]

Hard to answer a third person reply, but here are some points:
>This guy should see the video "Cutaway" it has a sequence of a Racer cutaway.
> The deployment is in about 2 seconds.
Seen it. I've also seen something like 15 cutaways from Reflexes up close and personal. As I said, the Reflex seems as fast if not faster than the Racer.
> The method of comparison is "Time". Time from pilotchute release to full canopy.
Again, that doesn't cover airspeed or vertical speed at time of cutaway. I once watched a Talon reserve deployment take under a second - the person had cut away and fallen away for a few seconds, so she had some pretty good speed going when she deployed the reserve. Note that that does _not_ mean the deployment took less altitude than a 2 second deployment from a cutaway - she was covering a lot more distance initially due to her higher speed.
>The formula for converting time to distance is 1/2AT^2 + 2T. Newton wrote this one.
Actually, the formula he meant to use was .5AT^2, but as I mentioned above, you really have to add in the initial speed, so you end up with .5AT^2 + VT where V is the initial velocity. This is still incomplete - if that were truly accurate, all his test jumpers would be dead as they instantaneously stopped at the end of their freefall. The parachute decelerates them towards the end of their cutaway, before the canopy is fully inflated.
>He should ask the competition for their results and watch them squirm.
I don't really need to. I was involved in the Reflex TSO testing - I got to see a lot of the tests firsthand. I would recommend that you take what John says about his own rig, and about his competitors, with a grain of salt. His job, after all, is to build and sell Racers.
>I hope this is enough for you. Just remember what John Ruskin said. "It is impossible to win an
>argument with an ignorant man"
Same old John! I remember once taking a poll of canopy and rig manufacturers about what they thought repack cycles should be. A few said 180 days would be fine, a few said 360 would be OK. I called Jump Shack, and someone asked John what he thought. "It should be 60 days!" I heard him yell in the background.
-bill von

[mikefarmer 0]

Damn, Bill. If I wasn't already married........Anyway, ya'll ever notice how it's the ones with the experience who don't feel the need to constantly bash others.
Peace out!
Missy the 225 lb. Meat Missile
Sky World

[nissanmaniac 0]

My Rigger told me once... Their (Racer) reserve deployment results are not all that accurate. It has been observed that parachutes tend to open faster when wet (I never jumped a wet canopy, but...), and that's what I overheard was done with the Racer reserve deployment. Believe it or not... As for the container itself, I heard multiple negative opinions about all the Velcro.
What's the red one for ???????

[rhino 0]

The velcro was fine on my rig.. I sent it in for the modification.. Now it will have tuck tabs and no velcro.. It is VERY comfortable.. I for one don't have any complaints..I paid 800 for my brand new shadow racer NOS 2 years ago.. It still looks like the day I bought it. Rhino
Blue Skies and Smooth Rides!!
http://www.aahit.com

[AndyMan 7]

I think it's interesting how often the "fail safe" comments come up, both here and on the DZ. As if anything in this sport could ever be truely "fail safe".
Even if the harness was one piece, and this made the harness fail safe, this is just one small compenent of the system. Fact is, I've never heard of someone dieing of webbing failure in the short two years I've been around... While I'm sure this was a risk at some point, I just don't see it now.
I'm surprised skydiver don't fight this idea with the same rigor that pilots fight the downwind turn theories.
_Am
ICQ: 5578907
MSN Messenger: andrewdmetcalfe at hotmail dot com
Yahoo IM: ametcalf_1999