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I finally got to jump my Troll out of an airplane and I did it legal. It was a pain in the ass switching to a skydiving container. Why not have D rings or something similar for a reserve? The D rings could be used for repelling or rescue attachment points. It was fun. It was not base, but it was still fun.

I dunno. Because you didn't order them? Asylum lists them as a $20 option on their Price List.

In the U.S., the entire system has to be TSO'd to be legal. As far as I know, no BASE manufacturer has yet gone to the (considerable) expense and effort to get the harness/container system TSO'd. If you search this forum, you can find a bunch of discussion about that, including, if memory serves, some discussion about the Perigee containers going through that process in Germany.

 

Thank you both for the response. Wish I had thought about this a little earlier.

 

 

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Why not have D rings or something similar for a reserve?

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I'm rather an old timer and I have been thinking the same thing. Obviously the old 24' chest mount reserves are extremely simple and very quick to open. What could possibly be a problem with wearing one just in case you may need it? I'm sure someone will provide an answer that makes all the sense in the world (making this a dumb question). I truly doubt that BASE jumpers omit the reserve simply because they are too cool.

I just got some email from a base jumper who had D rings installed after he bought the rig. He skydives with it. Maybe it's time to get base harnesses tso'd. I used those 24' chest chutes myself at one time. Wonder about modern ones.

A couple thoughts:

(1) It greatly impedes your track. The belly mount is right where you need clean airflow.
(2) Your likely to be too short on altitude or time to use it.
(3) The major problems in BASE all have to do with object strike--not the lack of a reserve. Adding a reserve to the system is fairly unnecessary (look up the sorcerer BASE rig, which had a reserve, and you'll see that it has never gained in popularity, mostly for this reason).
(4) 99% of us have never trained in how to use a belly mount reserve, and haven't built it into our reflexes.

BTW, I've got an old belly mount that belongs to Randy Harrison, and once belonged to Carl Boenish. I've played with it a few times, and it still freaks me out.

This applies to foreign manufactured gear only. Since Asylum is making their gear on US soil they are not excluded from that requirement is my understanding. Some DZO's might let you skydive it... but only those that are not informed about the minor details of the FAR's and TSO requirements. With out it being TSO'd it is technically a FAR violation to take the harness out of an airplane. This is an issue if you ever get ramp checked by an inspector that is worth his salt, most times though you could probally slip it by if you wanted to that bad.

I was part of the team doing drop test with the Perigee. It was basically done to the German version of TSO-C23-D, with 135kg @ 200KNOTS with a FOX canopy.
@ Rickjump1. If one learns rigging, a canopy swapout could easily be a 10mn task plus your safety is enhanced because you know and understand more about the equipment.
take care,
space

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A couple thoughts:

(1) It greatly impedes your track. The belly mount is right where you need clean airflow.
(2) Your likely to be too short on altitude or time to use it.
(3) The major problems in BASE all have to do with object strike--not the lack of a reserve. Adding a reserve to the system is fairly unnecessary (look up the sorcerer BASE rig, which had a reserve, and you'll see that it has never gained in popularity, mostly for this reason).
(4) 99% of us have never trained in how to use a belly mount reserve, and haven't built it into our reflexes.
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I hadn't thought about (1) clean airflow for better tracking, but I do tend to disagree with 2-4.

My observation is that malfuctions do occur with ram-air technology. Having a reserve to attempt to get open to save your life when all else fails, regardless of altitude or training makes sense to me.

attached a picture of the reserve container attached with d- rings to the perrigee rig. we have to wear that on some legal base events in germany, to look cool. it was not in use till now, only balloon jump tested.
the canopy is a round ..speed brake ..not for flying.
the reserve container is not designed for super-tracking.
the french rig ZAK from adrenalinebase has also TSO in germany, together with the TSO´d troll complete legal package in germany.
take care
hannes

in the 2001 ABA vid a d00d jumps off the telecom (not sure of name sorry) tower in Malaysia and deploys his canopy then cuts away with reserve, reserve looks as though it only took 30ft or so to be fully inflated.

although I could be way off on that estimate.

What's to disagree with? With respect to (4), I certianly haven't trained a bellymount into my procedures, and I suspect the same is true of most other jumpers. With respect to (2), most of the jumps I do around here are a 3-second delay with impact at ~5 seconds, and I suspect 1-2 seconds is too little to deploy a bellymount. With respect to (3), my recollection of Nick's list is that object strike does, in fact, dominate, and that other situations in which a reserve would not have helped (low pull / no pull, for instance) make up the bulk of the remainder.

Edit to add: Of course, a partial mal would be slower and would give more time. Most partials are already treated by, for instance, the line release mod and WLO toggles.

The Gargoyle also has loops built for a seperable D-Ring chest mount reserve.

Did you have to special order that? How much did they cost?

My Gargoyle doesn't have them, and I don't see them on the options list on the Morpheus web site.

Rickjumps, what kind of rig do you have?

does that mean a german citizen can use that at a US DZ since that it is TSO'd in Germany? or how does that rule work...

That's a Sorcerer.

The reserve is essentially direct bagged off the main risers.

The Sorcerer video is up on Skydiving Movies.

They come as standard. They are not (at all) obvious, but they are there.

Maybe I'm confused. Are we talking about loops to hold tersh rings, or the tersh rings/loops themselves?

My Gargoyle (and my Vision) has the folded bits of loop sewn behind the MLW, so that you could slide a removable D ring in there and screw it down. It doesn't have actual built in tersh rings (like the option available on the Perigees).

Quite tricky to find, close to lower edge of mud flap.

>>(1) It greatly impedes your track. The belly mount is right where you need clean airflow. <<

They didn't all look like what John Wayne wore. We did have semi-wedge shaped chest mounts like Bird's Velcro Rip-off, and the Pop-top containers in the late 70s. You could almost surf on them. I'd think today a really aerodynamic set of gut gear could be made.

When you think of distributing the gear around one's body, especially for vRw, wedge shaped gut gear could be the friggin' bomb . . .

NickD
BASE 194

you mean these loops ?

 
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I hadn't thought about (1) clean airflow for better tracking, but I do tend to disagree with 2-4.

What's to disagree with? With respect to (4), I certianly haven't trained a bellymount into my procedures, and I suspect the same is true of most other jumpers. With respect to (2), most of the jumps I do around here are a 3-second delay with impact at ~5 seconds, and I suspect 1-2 seconds is too little to deploy a bellymount. With respect to (3), my recollection of Nick's list is that object strike does, in fact, dominate, and that other situations in which a reserve would not have helped (low pull / no pull, for instance) make up the bulk of the remainder.

Of course, a partial mal would be slower and would give more time. Most partials are already treated by, for instance, the line release mod and WLO toggles.

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Everyone on this site has more recent BASE jumping experience than I have. I certainly wouldn't presume to be an expert. All I intended to convey was that it has been my experience that it only takes a second to get a chest pack reserve out when it is needed.

Even if a high percentage of fatalities are due to object strikes, that still leaves a percentage that aren't, however small.

I saw a lot of malfunctions in Johnny Utah's Bridge Day safety video. It just seems to me that there are occasions when a reserve might come in handy.

I meant it had the loops to be able to take the seperable D-Rings

Just my own rambling thoughts on old round belly-warts.

On most BASE jumps where a reserve would be used, your still going fairly slowly. A round reserve actually takes LONGER to inflate than a square, at least a square (sans slider) will get bottom skin inflation quicker because of (a) shorter lines, (b) smaller surface area.

Because of that, a tersh type deployment where the canopy is manually thrown out to the end of the lines would be much more effective than pulling the r/c on a chest mount and hoping the spring mounted pc will take the canopy out.

Also, a small square canopy would be much less bulky than an old round....

That said, with square reserves you always have the possibility of a downplane situation, so maybe a specially constructed, low surface area round with shorter lines might be an idea to develop. Maybe it should have a ballistic type launch system?

Seems like it would take a lot of work. I'd probably go with a second square and just cut the main away after reserve deployment....

As to Utah's, (or Will Forshay's) film, there have only been a handful of unlandable mals in the 20+ years at Bridge day, most are just premature brake releases. I've seen one cutaway in response to a mal (maybe two) the rest were usually line-overs that spiralled into the water. At least one pc hesitation caused a death (87?), but that was an undersized pc.

Big thing is, if you're in freefall with limited time, do you spend it trying to get the main to come out (not knowing what stage it's at) or do you put out the back-up and risk entanglement, running out of time....

Six of one, half dozen of the other....

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Because of that, a tersh type deployment where the canopy is manually thrown out to the end of the lines would be much more effective than pulling the r/c on a chest mount and hoping the spring mounted pc will take the canopy out.
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Actually the old 24' chest packs had no pilot chute or sleeve. They were nothing more than a canopy packed neatly in a small container. They opened as soon as they hit the air, in what seemed to be hundreds of times faster than the old round main parachutes. You basically continued freefalling for the length of the lines.

our chest ones need about 100 - 120 ft for deployment (from a zerospeed)
we show this on every instuctional video, to convince the newbies that this technique will work (if needed and operated, whatever this means...)
I also have seen square reserves, mounted as chest reserves.
in my opinion, the reserve is meant as a speed brake, not a real flying canopy.

we here in germany HAD to wear two parachutes, because it is the law.
one main, one reserve.
therefore, the detachable D-rings were mounted on the reinforced MLW to carry the chest reserve.
(the german-built susi containersystem had the D-rings installed directly to the MLW.)
since this year, we have special permission by the DFV (german skydiving ass.), to stay away from the use of a reserve, if a jumper wants this.
but only if we can guarantee that an endangerment of spectators can be excluded.
example:
on our bridge day weekend:
only jumpers,
no one under the bridge:
we could jump without wearing a reserve.

on a jump in front of spectators,
perhaps with some of them directly under the exit point, there will be the use of a reserve-canopy obligatory.

in germany, till today, the harness/container, the main, the reserve-container and the reserve is to be tested and approved.
we have paperwork for every unit.

Since the Perigre/ZAK and Troll have German TSO approval - and the European JTSO/JAAR TSO is pretty much a photo-copy of FAA TSO standards - you should be able to legally jump them from FAA-registered airplanes ... as long as you are wearing an FAA-approved chest type reserve.

This is the same logic that allows American citizens to legally jump Australian (Parachutes Australia), Canadian (Flying High), South African (PISA), French (Parachutes de France), German (Para-Tec) etc. skydiving gear manufactured under TSOs administered by their respective national airworthiness authorities.

The planet is getting smaller as more an more countries adopt FAA standards.

Does that mean I can use a Troll as a reserve canopy? Or do main canopies require TSO approval in Germany?

Main canopies require TSO approval in Germany ... different standards than reserves.

Unless a canopy passes all the TSO drop tests for reserves, it cannot legally be used as a reserve.

I was mainly referring to BASE harnesses that passed German TSO testing. They still need TSOed chest-mounted reserves - to be legally jumped from FAA-registered airplanes.

Rob,
The Rig(one approved harness, one approved container, and one approved Canopy along with the unappoved Canopy and container) must have an FAA TSO to jump from an airplane in the USA.

Regardless of what other countries the rig has been certified; if it was built in the USA and is being jumped in the USA from an airplane, the rig must carry a USA TSO.

Even if a German or other non-national was jumping it here!




All of those rigs carry an offical USA TSO, not just the ones from their respective countries.

To make a legal jump, the Harness would need to be FAA aproved along with thw Chest mount parachute and container.

Hope that clears it up for everyone,
MEL
Skyworks Parachute Service

Since the Zak and Troll are both manufactured outside the US, does that mean that you could legally jump a Zak/Troll combo out of a plane, with a chest mounted reserve?

ask your chief instructor..if he says no then go do something else with your time..and ours

That was helpful. Thanks. Chances are a chief instructor would not know the answer to that question. They teach students to skydive are supposed to know the BSR's and pertinent FAA regs when it comes to repack cycles pull altitudes, and cloud clearance.

There's no reason he would need to know all TSO regs. Especially if they pertain to the foreign equivalent.

I think "Chief Instructor" may have a different meaning in the US and the UK.

Tom,
You could if the Harness carried a FAA approval along with the chest mount and it's Canopy.

What someone should do is put the chest rings on a existing manufactured base rig's harness. Then use a already FAA approved chest mount system and TSO the system.

It is quite possible that the "new" Harness could be considered a major repair OR a remanufactured componet, thus a major short cut in the long TSO process.I would have to look into it to be sure.

Short jumps,
MEL