maddogjason

JumpWally: Your profile picture confirms the truth. Being one of the cool kids is what skydiving is all about! Apogee77: On PD´s RS´s warning label it says that its developed only for sub-terminal openings. If I remember correctly this is also mentioned in the manual. I already have PD´s RS with the snaps so if I use a removable slider it will be PD`s with snaps. Has anyone used this slider without the snaps in terminal speeds? What are the snaps supposed to do? According to the manual the slider can be used without the snaps. Has there been a serious accident with removable sliders during the opening? What would happen ( if the cable would fail and the slider would be released from one or more corners in the early stage of the opening?has it happened?) I´m really only interested in the risks concerning the actual opening in terminal speeds (and of course how cool I will look with my removable slider...).

The few seconds/minutes that I might win or lose doesn’t really bother me. Using the RDS bothers me to the extent that I don’t want to do it on a normal jump where I might be in traffic or opening low and being far away from the landing area. The only reason I’m interested in the removable slider is the benefit to get rid of the damn thing under canopy. Some people say it increases visibility and others that it increases safety because you don’t have to connect the slider with your rig. The main problem is the wings rig that I’m using. Most jumpers who stow their sliders have rubber bands or magnetic keepers. These are usually put under the reserve flap but are not tagged to the actual rig. The reserve flap on the Wings rig is too wide for the rubber band or the magnetic keepers. (As far as I know, if anyone has come up with a good solution please tell me!). I’ve tried two options: A) slider stopper on the rear risers which keeps the slider down. Did not like it, the slider was right behind my head which made it uncomfortable. B) Tagged a plastic ball with a rubber band on my rig. This works the same way as the keepers that you put under the reserve flap. The difference is that the plastic ball is tagged to your rig. If the shit hits the fan and something goes wrong you might get a malfunction that will be more difficult to deal with due to that tagged plastic ball. If the keeper is put under the reserve flap and not tagged to the rig the malfunction will most likely be easier to handle (?) So basically I ponder how much I increase the risk with the removable slider to gain its benefits compared to the increased risk of tagging a plastic ball to my rig. Stowing your slider works well but I would imagine that flying under canopy with no slider at all works even better…?

I´m interested in using Pefromance Design´s removable slider on my velocity 90. I have no intentions of using the Removable Deployment System (RDS). PD:s sliders have snaps that are supposed to connect the slider and the nose/stabilizer. Riggers tells me that to get the snaps installed I would have to send my canopy over seas. This pretty much means that I will not be using the snaps. The RDS operational instructions mention that RS/RSD can be used without the snaps, but they highly recommend them to get opening consistency. Most of my openings take place at terminal speeds. I´m not too worried about the growing risk of malfunctions as long as they can be sorted out with a cut-away. What worries me is the complete malfunction of the removable sliders cables that theoretically would cause and extremely hard opening. I´m not sure what exactly the snaps are meant to do, but I imagine they might reduce this risk? Does anyone have any experience or knowledge concerning safety issues when using a Pefromance Design´s removable slider without the snaps at terminal speeds? The warning label on the removable slider says something about injury or death…