Line twists at high wing loading

[raymod2 1]

Spinning on my back under a Velocity 103 with 3 line twists at 1700 feet on a night jump got me thinking. How often do people at high wing loadings (roughly 1.8 and up) get line twists and how often do they cut away rather than kick out of them? I've seen video of people cutting away less than three seconds after spinning up.

[ianmdrennan 2]

So far I've only had 1 chop from a spinning mal (Heatwave 120 when I was really inexperienced). On the velo I've not had a spinning problem at all and have had line twists maybe 2x on the 90 (1x on the 96). If I do 3 revs and I'm still not any better off (or damn close to being out of them), it's outta there.

If it's like this I'm outta there immediately.

My question to you....night jump....1700 feet?

Blues,
Ian

Performance Designs Factory Team

[SkymonkeyONE 4]

I have never chopped a Velo or any other crossbraced main (around 2000 jumps on them). My only two chops under highly loaded elliptical mains were under an out-of-trim H-mod Cobalt 75 in a wingsuit. I probably would not have had to chop either of those two times had I been able to get to my risers a second earlier. Never chopped a Stilletto either and I jumped them for six years in sizes 107 and 97.

Of all the rampant chopping I see today under highly loaded mains, whether crossbraced or not, I truly attribute most of them to lack of experience and poor body position at pulltime. People need to realize that highly loaded wings simply cannot be treated the same as larger, lighter-loaded, "square" and lightly elliptical mains. One must be totally on his/her game when deploying and flying canopies such as these. The fact of the matter is that most people jumping them don't have any business whatsoever doing so. I don't know how many times I have to say it: HP mains at high wingloads are very poor vanity purchases. If you are one of the people regularly chopping your shit, you probably need to take a step back and get something more reasonable over your head.

Chuck

[jdhill 0]

I've got about 1000 jumps on velocities at anywhere from 2.0 to 2.5... I've had line twists 3 times... Chopped 1 (probably could have kicked out of it), kicked out of 1, and 1 flew itself out...

1700 feet, at night, with a high WL suonds like a bad place to finding out you have line twists...

J

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. - Edmund Burke

[skygod7777 0]

i've been jumping xbraced for about 700 jumps (300 on fx 84 and a few other sizes, about 400 on vx 85 and a number of other sizes, wing loadings from 2.65 to 1.8), and i have cut away once on a 78 fx, first jump on it. i've had line twist a few times, but i've always gotten out of them (knock on wood......).


but on the other hand, i pull higher than some people (i try to pitch by 3.5k so i can be open at 3). that may have a factor i guess, i'll go to 1500 before i give up.

my only other cut away was on a heatwave 120 that spun up on me, but i think if i got the same opening today, i could have gotten out of it.

later

[SkymonkeyONE 4]

Kelly made a good point: dumping higher. I don't ever deploy my velo below three grand and will normally deploy as soon as is safely possible, sometimes as high as 4500 feet (when I am doing AFF) or higher (some swoop meets where I am using my RDS). If I am on a skydive where traffic is going to be an issue and I must dump lower than three, I will jump my other rig with my Sabre2.

[Miami 0]

Quote

How often do people at high wing loadings (roughly 1.8 and up) get line twists and how often do they cut away rather than kick out of them?

I have had line twists on both my 21 and 27 loaded at 2.9-3:1 and have never had to chop them (knocking on wood as well). Each time I had line twists the canopies flew straight and there was no problem kicking out. It's all about having the risers even.

Edit to add...about 1000 crossbraced jumps and line twists 3 times, once on the 27 (3-4 twists) and twice on the 21 (1-2 twists each time).

Hope this helps...

Miami

[D22369 0]

How often do people at high wing loadings (roughly 1.8 and up) get line twists and how often do they cut away rather than kick out of them? I've seen video of people cutting away less than three seconds after spinning up.***

I rarely get line twists on my FX, maybe one twist in every 50 jumps or so. I have one cutaway on it with a 2-1 wingloading out of 400 jumps and if I would have had more altitude I could have kicked them out.
As for people chopping after 3 seconds.... when in doubt - whip it out. High wingloadings get real exciting and use lots of altitude with linetwists real fast......

Roy

Roy

They say I suffer from insanity.... But I actually enjoy it.

[diablopilot 2]

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How often do people at high wing loadings (roughly 1.8 and up) get line twists

Now? Maybe 1 in 100 to 150

Quote

how often do they cut away rather than kick out of them?

Once.

----------------------------------------------
You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.

[raymod2 1]

That video looked familiar. When it decides to spin up it happens FAST. It looks like that guy gave it 6 seconds before cutting away.

In my case I pulled at exactly 3,000 feet (we were staging our opening altitudes because it was a night jump). My Velocity takes so long to open and I struggled with it for a few seconds before it started flying stable with 3 half twists (I was spinning on my back but not too fast). That's when I looked at my Neptune and it was still in freefall mode reading 1.7. I didn't cutaway but it took me another 500 feet to kick out of the twists and stop the spin.

[ianmdrennan 2]

Quote

That video looked familiar.

Yeah that was video from Gary Harbird (he posts here occasionally) when he had a break fire on his 84 and was caught "napping"
Blues bro.
Ian

Performance Designs Factory Team

[michael 9]

Dumping high is cool. I think the old-school idea of break off at 4, track till 3, pitch to be swinging by 2-2.5k is dangerous, particularly on these types of parachutes.

I think a re-education of jumpers for a 5 grand break off, track and pitch to be swinging by 3500 is a great idea.

After all, is that extra 3 to 5 seconds of freefall really worth finding yourself in a world of shit, in a spinning mal at 1500?

[meatbomb 0]

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think the old-school idea of break off at 4, track till 3, pitch to be swinging by 2-2.5k is dangerous, particularly on these types of parachutes.

LOL!

I have a hard enough time convincing people round here that that is the way to go...round here, the old-old-school idea is break-off at 3.5, track til 2.5, pull to be under canopy by 2... Not that there's any problem with that on most of the canopies people jump, but I very rarely pull below 3 on my XFire2...(on my Sabre I used to pull at 2,001ft for a canopy by 2...)

---
Swoopert, CS-Aiiiiiii!
Piccies

[michael 9]

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Not that there's any problem with that on most of the canopies people jump

Except that those ideas persist when those same jumpers downsize and move to smaller, faster, parachutes.

Teach the right way first, I reckon!

[JGarcia 0]

Hi! I'm with Chuck on this one... I jump a Velo 90 on my main rig and a Xaos-27 93 on my secondary rig (loaded between 2.0 and 2.2)and I make it a point to be deploying high whenever possible for many reasons.

Usually I'm jumping a camera and that's reason enough to open higher than normal. I also pack my mains so that they open very softly and nicely (read 800' openings)...both of these mains I can deploy straight out of a track and they will still treat me well. Also, I <> flying them, so the more time I have underneath them, the happier I am, and I'm free to practice new approaches up high, swoop down to others below me and film them under canopy, or just do a little CRW with the Reserve side Instructor when I do AFF.

However, the time I was happiest for deploying high was on a Veteran's Day Demo a year ago. Yes, I was jumping my Velo 90 into a demo because it was at a park and I had plenty of outs and I'm dead on with my accuracy on it. Exit was at 5500 ft, launching a 4-way round and spinning it (we were wearing smoke) until 4,400' and then break off. It was planned that I would pull in place so that I can film the guy carrying the flag while under canopy.

As soon as I deployed, I had the nastiest spinning line twist malfunction I had ever dreamt of. I finished kiciking them out at 1500' (my hard deck), landed right on target with the crowd cheering bec they thought it was part of the show.

The video from my point of view is ridiculous with the cork-screw of orange smoke painting the blue sky above me, and the view of me passing all the other jumpers as I'm seeing earth-sky-earth-sky and the canopy is screaming towards the planet. Maybe I'll dig it up and post it here.

Moral of the story: Deploying your high performance main up high is not only cool, but handy when you need a little extra altitude to deal with malfunctions.

--Jairo

Damn, that was a much longer reply than I thought!

Low Profile, snag free helmet mount for your Sony X3000 action cam!

[Spizzzarko 0]

Besides,

You probably didn't want to get smoke slag on your reserve!!!

[JGarcia 0]

Yeah, that stuff leaves a nasty orange residue! I wouldn't want it to ruin my Angelic White reserve!.

--Jairo

Low Profile, snag free helmet mount for your Sony X3000 action cam!

[Spizzzarko 0]

When I was in the Military we had a guy take his smoke bracket off and toss it mindlesly. Well he ended up tossing it into someone elses canopy. It melted it's way through the entire canopy. There were about 6 holes in the canopy about the size off a football. That spectre 170 was a write off. Smoke is nothing to sneeze at!!! We had another guy who had either a canester blow up on him in freefall, or hes was back sliding like a mother fucker, because when he got down from the demo jump his entire rig was just covered in slag and pencil eraser sized holes, and his demo jump suit was burned off below the knee. His boot was fried too! It didn't do any damage to the canopy's but the Vector three was a write off, and so was his jump suit. He didn't get hurt though.