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Going for the A/V can't decide on a handle or not (internal vs. external ) what's your favorite 38" for a 1000' cliff.

Use a floating handle. It works great. I'm not sure if anyone is making them standard, but I bet Marty at Asylum will make you one custom if you ask.

Tom.
Thanks for the info. I've never heard of that, could you elaborate ?

Once a happy Swedish jumper showed me a trick.
Using a PC that had no handle,
in a situation where he wanted a handle (internal),
he simply slipped an empty film canister into the PC during folding.
Any other small very light little object could work.
The film canister was big enough to make a useful 'handle',
but also light enough as to be unobtrusive after use.
Slips in and out of the PC easily enough,
and not really so dangerous if it falls out after deployment.
A rather clever fix in the field.

I used wiffle balls/practice golf balls and they worked fine for the 100 or so jumps I did with them, found the canister a little more awkward to orientate, but that's just me

Stay safe

Neil

Tom, when you say floating handle, are you referring to an internal PVC handle? If so I know Asylum has them in their 38" vented PCs standard (or at least used to).

Nope. A "floating handle" is the technique that Avery described above. I learned it from PerFlare. You basically just put a small, hard, light object into the PC. It sits in the "handle" position when packed, but falls down off the topskin on deployment, so you don't get any of the weirdness associated with a weighted topskin.

You can manufacture a PC like this by inserting a handle of some sort, then sewing the mesh shut enough that it simply cannot fall out.

Mr. Losli has PCs with a practice golf ball as the handle (outside of/on the top skin). I put one on my 32" (skydiving) PC that I use with my S3 (in the BASE PC pouch). It really is no weight. Playing with it on the ground, you'' see that there's no "dimple" in the topskin. Good alternative for those who want a handle without the weight or the risk of a finger in a PVC pipe.

Edit: Not sure if he has it on vented PCs, which I guess makes this post irrelevant.

Marty seems to be making them as standard. I just got 3 new AV PCs from Asylum and the 38" has a floating handle - confused the hell out of me at first! Haven't had a chance to jump it yet but it packs, grips and pulls out fine.

Jules

Jules

The floating handle worked fine for me, bit odd to start with but you get used to it. It was Space that put me on to it a while back. Now use the mushritto so don't bother with a handle anymore

Stay safe

Just for consideration:

The disadvantage of having any type of handle outside of the pilot chute is the risk of having the bridle hang up on it during the pilot chute's deployment.

The danger is much more pronounced at low airspeeds and the chances of it happening at higher deployment speeds is much less (higher airspeeds clear it quickly -- usually before it has a chance to fully hitch on to the handle).

For this reason, most manufacturers tend to only put handles on the smaller pilot chutes which are used at higher airspeeds, and when they do, they try to make it as low profile as they can.

But why take the chance? I too heard about the idea of a floating handle from Per Flare -- and on the surface, it makes a lot of sense. In this game, if I can reasonably eliminate a problem, even its probability is only 1 in 100,000, I'm doing it....

Bryan