Basejumper.com - archive

after i read this post...

http://www.dropzone.com/...post=2424648#2424648

...i (as a newbie to skydiving) wondered what tension knots are and how you can prevent them.

Tighten a piece of dacron with your hands. The fingers in your right hand turn the tensioned dacron one way and your fingers in the left hand turn the opposite way. A knot occurs and that is a tension knot.
This can happen on your brake lines and a way to prevent it is by untwisting your brake lines before every pack. If you don't, in time these twists build up and you run the risk of getting a tension knot. Tension knots like to fight with sliders and guide rings and they're just a pain...
I have also heard of this occuring with line dump from bad velcro in the tail pocket and while I understand how line dump works, i don't really understand how you could get a tension knot from this.
Hope this makes sense. I usually need to draw or use my hands to explain things...

It's a knot, with tension. Like tying a knot in the middle of the line to another line or group with a halfhitch. That is the simplest.

With line dump you have slack lines everywhere. If a loop forms and raps another loop before they get tension, you could get a tension knot.

do u know what a conapy is .

Exactly. If the velcro is bad then the whole bundle can fall out during deployment and one loop may get entangled with another .

I've seen it happen to someone; from below the canopy looked okay, but it was clear that the jumper didn't have full control and kept spiralling, recovering, spiralling etc. Fortunately, even though the guy concerned in this case hit the ground with a noticeable thump, he walked away pretty much uninjured.

You really don't want one - and if your tail pocket velcro shows signs of wear (like it's not completely stuck down still when you've landed, it's probably time to change. I've just observed some peeling on one of my canopies, and it's only had 40 something deployments...