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I hear a lot of negatives about the old gear we used in the 60's. I'd like to clarify a few things:

1. Pilot chutes were spring-loaded and packed inside the container along with the bridle cord. One did not have to learn proper execution of PC deployment. There was no wrong way to do it. The PC blasted out away from the jumper at a consistent amount of force upon opening. If anyone ever had a bridle wrapped around their arm or leg in those days, regardless of body position on opening, I never heard about it.

2. There was no such thing as lost steering lines. It was not possible with the simple arrangement of the old round technology's contained and guided steering line construction regardless of whether it was a modified military parachute or the slightly more complex Paracommander.

3. Contrary to common present-day belief, the rounds let you down nice and easy. I landed standing up at least 80% of the time. We knew how to do a PLF in my time, and it always sufficed for the other 20% of my landings. I noticed an incredibly high percentage of jumpers breaking their fall with their hands at BD '05. No one ever did that in my day.

4. Present day parachutes are much more complex to pack than our old rounds were. There were 28 symmetrical connections from the risers to each individual panel of the canopy. Line checks were very simple: follow lines 1 and 14 in one hand and 15 and 28 in the other down to the inside connections to the risers. If there were no lines crossed all the other lines were routed correctly.

5. A very simple sleeve took the place of the slider to provide comfortable openings. The apex of the sleeve attached to the other end of the bridle and a second bridle cord attached the apex of the canopy to the the sleeve. The job of the PC was to pull the sleeve off the canopy so deployment would always begin at the skirt and progess from bottom to top. Openings were always reasonably gentle whether the jump was a "hop and pop" or at terminal.

6. What makes the present-day parachutes so great also tends to make them dangerous. Canopy control mostly consisted of knowing which way the wind was blowing on landing and how to get there. I have been criticized for overstating a forward speed of 15mph for the old TU-7 modded canopy, but that was the approximate wind speed you could land them vertically in for me. In any wind greater than 15mph you expected to have a little ground speed on landing facing the wind, or a whole lot of course if you dared to run with the wind on landing. Landing running with the wind was not commonly practiced in those days by most non-suicidal jumpers.

I have a real hard time with the replacement of the internally packed, spring-loaded pilot chute and ripcord in favor of the stowed or hand-held PC. I'm sure there was a good reason it evolved in that direction but it escapes me. I would dearly love to have someone point out where my thinking is flawed in this regard.

Please don't interpret this post as a dumb "give me the good old days" plea. In a way, I'm comparing the old Model T to a Porche. I am not in any way suggesting that parachuting should retrogress in that direction at all. The concept of the rigid wing parachute is an incredible advance to the state of the art of parachuting in my opinion. My only purpose in this post is to enlighten the uninitiated to what was better and safer about the old round technology. I truly believe we broke fewer bones back in my days.

Thanks for that post Mike. It's great having someone like you chime in here and I see you are posting more frequently which is great.

If you havn't already, I suggest you have a look at 'The Parachute Manual' Vol 1 and 2 by Dan Poynter. There is some very good stuff in there and as well as being good reference, it is interresting to read.

This is what is written regarding the appearance of hand deployed pilot chutes:
"With the introduction of Bill Booth's Wonderhog system in 1974 came the "pull-out pilot chutes" and "throw-out pilot chutes". Since both are springless, neither one contributes much to the weight or volume of the pack. Further, the elimination of a compressed spring inside the pack means pack shaping devices such as bow stiffeners and pack opening bands may be eliminated."
There's quite a bit more but I think the above reasons are basically why the change came to be. Of course these manuals aren't the be all and end all, but they usually provide decent answers.

Maybe somebody else could add to this. Again, thanks for the post; It's been copied and archived.

In regards to the spring loaded pilot chutes. The idea is still superior, I believe. I think that what posbase said was true, and that throw out pilot chutes were much less of a hassle, and would potentially last longer. This is in reference to skydiving.

However, you do not have to look hard in skydiving to see evidence that spring loaded pilot chutes are superior. Reserves are all still packed with them, and some mains are still packed with them for AFF students. The reasons are what you stated: body position does not matter and cannot (except in extreme cases, maybe) be responsible for a malfunction or the like.

In BASE, we have seen, fairly recently some stunts that have been moving towards this as well. See the low BASE jumps that had exploding pilot chutes, etc.

I doubt that this will come back, and ever been seen in mainstream BASE, as simplicity is an important part of things. But you never know.

Thanks for your post.

You seem to be comparing old skydiving gear to modern base gear. Skydiving gear and base gear are 2 different things theses days. If you were comparing it to modern skydiving gear it would be a better comparison as you didn't have BASE gear back then. I am hesitant to do this in this forum and think it should be moved, but here goes.
1. I think this was done more for covinience than anything else. Mainly ease of packing and bulk and weight of gear. The spring loaded PC is a better system for an unstable body position and thats why it is still used for reserves and was use on main in student gear till a few years ago(It should still be used ion student gear IMO)
2. With skydiving gear you can't lose a toggle either. As I said base gear is different and there is reasoning behind it.
3. What you watched at BD was a BASE event with BASE canopies they fly the way they fly for a reason and what they give up to skydiving gear is landing performance. Ask any one who has jumped the the old round and modern canopies and they will pick todays. You could stand up 80% of the time skydiving I can stand up 99.5% of the time.
4. You watched BASE jumpers pack. This is quite different from a skydiving pack job. I run the lines up just like you said, shake the canopy, wrap the tail around, throw it on the floor and stuff it in the bag.
6 minutes for ready to jump pack job.
5. I don't see where the sleeve was an advantage. A slider works just fine and is much smaller and less bulk. Also easier to pack.
6. You are right here. We gave up simplicity and got performance. The problem with this is there is much more room for human error and this causes a bundle of issues. With that said the square parachute is what has made parachuting what it is today.

Like I said, I don't think this is the right forum for this discussion. What you used on your BASE jump was skydiving gear yet you are comparing that to BASE gear. I used skydiving gear in my comparison because to me it seems more reasonable. I understand why you posted it here and I also see where you are coming from on some of your comments. I just don't agree with alot of them.

I seem to remember on my AFF and consol dives a couple of occasions where my spring loaded pc bounced around on my back for a while before catching air. I've seen several student vids where the JMs had to knock the PC out into the airstream. I think it would bother me not being in control of whether or not my PC launched into clean air.

Exactly, Bill Booth said in his skydive radio interview about the Hand deploy PC. "I decided to make my last ditch effort, first" as in it was pretty common for a spring loaded PC to end up in the burble and the jumper had to work towards getting it out of there.

Kris.

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You seem to be comparing old skydiving gear to modern base gear.
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Actually it is apples to oranges whether you are comparing BASE or skydiving gear. In my opinion there would be little difference in "time to open" of modern base rigs if you were to remove the sleeve for "slider down/off" jumps and include it for the equivalent of "slider up".

I forgot to mention that the lines were daisychained and stowed in the container. I doubt that there would be any major timing difference in the way the respective rigs would unstow the lines.

Not to suggest that it would make any difference, but it would be interesting to me to see a one-on-one comparison of opening times for the old and new technologies side by side, done with a typical base rig packed slider down and an old TU-7 sans sleeve. I think the opening time and distances would probably be fairly comparable.

By the way, our 24' reserves were unmodified (no steering capability other than risers) and always packed without any pilot chute. They were intended in my day to be for survival rather than comfort. I have opened a reserve once at near terminal. The opening shock was certainly substantial but not bone-shattering.

Once again I am NOT advocating returning to the past. The intention of my original post was to try to dispel some of the common negative thoughts and comments I have heard regarding the safety of the old parachute technology of the 60's compared to today's technology. I think the old and new technologies each have their unique pluses and minuses with respect to one another, especially in the area of safety.

Exactly, Bill Booth said in his skydive radio interview about the Hand deploy PC. "I decided to make my last ditch effort, first" as in it was pretty common for a spring loaded PC to end up in the burble and the jumper had to work towards getting it out of there.

I forgot to mention that the lines were daisy chained and stowed in the container.

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Did you commonly use that method to stow the lines for deployment?
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The lines were stowed in the container in the same manner that they are currently stowed in the tailpocket of a base rig. The wording "daisychain" was probably incorrect and misleading. Sorry about that.

rounds also have another advantage:
they can be landed by novices and the unconsious.
(this is again related to skydiving, not BASE...)

rounds remain a solid life saving piece of equipment. bail-out rigs, ejection seats, etc. continue to use them.

I left out one salient point:

7. To my knowledge our old ripcord actuated PC arrangement never caused a problem due to having the bridle cord improperly routed under a leg strap or lodged under a corner of the rig. An improperly routed bridle under the above conditions is obviously a death sentence in a single canopy base jump.

Hey Mike, I've seen a lot of thank you's for posting, but haven't seen any of the well deserved ego boosting yet, so you're the man. It must have taken an insane desire to fly to chuck yourself off that rock with rounds, knowing that the cliff was right there and you were at the mercy of the wind after opening. I've been wondering, did you guys have belly flying experience, and were you familiar with tracking? And did you track on that jump?

Since this is what you used for BASE gear, I see it as comparing BASE gear with BASE gear. These are my opinions of your comparisons

1.Other people have already covered this, but being able to put your pilot chute out into clean air is worth the risk of rigging malfunction, as long as you make sure you don't make a rigging malfunction.

2.The benefits of being able to fly your wing to a place of your choice (relative to wind obviously), and land it softly, make it worth using ram-air parachutes.

The ability to lose a control line is a benefit because it can save your life if you have a control line over.

3.I also know how to PLF, that knowledge is still very valuable. As well as taking a fall in general and bracing for impact well.

4. I have seen Ray Losli and Marty Tilly do very nice pack jobs in under 15 minutes. I'm sure others can as well.

6. You mention that the extra control can be dangerous, but it is only dangerous in untrained or unexperienced/uncurrent hands.

And again, you're tha man.

Edited to remove my signature.

u should check out old skydiveing videos pash the baton
shit its really and amazing how we have procresd. baack then u got an award for building a 4 way now we can turn 50 pionts in 35 seconds By the way mike I want to base a PC-10 but over water

his should be in history and trivia, not the base zone, but here it goes....

If anyone ever had a bridle wrapped around their arm or leg in those days, regardless of body position on opening, I never heard about it.
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You obviously didn't read many fatality reports.
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I truly believe we broke fewer bones back in my days.
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Show me your statistics. At my dropzone we switched to squares for students in mid-season precisely because we were having so many lower leg injuries. That year we did pretty half on rounds, half on squares. ALL the student injuries took place on rounds.

There is a reason CSPA switched to mandatory square parachutes for students back in the '80's. A good landing under a round was often equivalent to a poor landing under a student square.

People made fewer jumps on round canopies.

I have nothing against rounds -- I jumped them when I started, and I went back and jumped one again this year, but you can't make sweeping statements like that based on your own anecdotal or subjective experience as a relatively low-experienced jumper. Show us some numbers to back it up!

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No, but you did have problems with bent pins (death), with ripcord housings getting plugged up with mud (or pea-gravel) creating impossible pull forces, kinked ripcord housings, blast handles, etc. I know of one jumper who went in who's father was able to pick up the front-mounted reserve and swing it around in a circle BY THE RIPCORD HANDLE. No one would have been able to pull that.

From the CSPA statistics between 1971 and 1976, as reported by CSPA safety officer Rudy Jambrich, there was one injury for every 40th CSPA member (which includes students) and one fatality for every 10,000 jumps (this amounted to 30 fatalities over the five years). There was a malfunction for every 280 jumps.

CSPA is the Canadian Sport Parachute Association.

Thanks Dave,

You're certainly right about rounds in that respect. We didn't ride to earth in flying machines in those days. We also didn't know much about the insane winds around the face of the Cap. We had to find out about them the hard way.

We did however have "belly flying" experience though. I doubt that anyone could make that jump if they didn't know how to track. Brian and I had done a lot of RW together before that jump, and we had a lot of tracking experience before we met one another.

I was rather hoping that my post wouldn't turn into something that looked like I had anything against the wonderful advances that have been made in parachuting. That was not my intention. Your point and others about getting the pilot chute out into clean air makes all the sense in the world to me. I recall having developed the habit of initiating a barrel roll after every pull to be sure the PC got a good stream of air. Hesitations were not uncommon in those days, and would admittedly be very serious in low altitude base jumps. What I probably should have said was that I wish there was a less precarious way of dealing with the PC/bridle link than what is currently in use.

I hope it didn't sound like I was in criticism of the benefit of being able to fly your wing to the place of your choice. I love the ram air technology. My point was that the older parachutes were simpler, easier to pack and opened at least as well and as safely as the modern equipment. Line overs, or what we called Mae Wests, were extremely rare in my day.

By the way, what I saw regarding PLF's made me think that they went the way of pencil and paper or slide rules when calculators appeared. No one knows how to extract a root long hand these days, including myself.

I did see an instance of a very experienced guy clobbering in with a low hook turn on Fox News a few months ago. He was described as a trained, experienced and current professional exhibition jumper. Obviously the power of the new technology can be a danger to the experienced jumper as well as the uninitiated at times.

Again my post was intended to defend what was good about the old technology of my day. Many people shrieked in horror at the thought of our El Cap jump with round skydiving parachutes. I just wanted to point out why they weren't all that bad.

Make no mistake about it - Seeing the advances in today's parachuting was like stepping into the future for me. I am in absolute awe of the ram air technology.

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No, but you did have problems with bent pins (death), with ripcord housings getting plugged up with mud (or pea-gravel) creating impossible pull forces, kinked ripcord housings, blast handles, etc. I know of one jumper who went in who's father was able to pick up the front-mounted reserve and swing it around in a circle BY THE RIPCORD HANDLE. No one would have been able to pull that.
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Good point. I never saw any of the problems you describe, but certainly can't argue the validity of any of them. I do recall having at least one extremely hard pull with borrowed gear.

Adding to your list, I once had a problem with a ripcord housing keeper that tore loose when I picked up my rig by the ripcord housing on the way to the plane. I had a real surprise when I went to pull and found that the entire housing extended all the way to my hand. I was lucky to be able to grab the ball on the end of the cable with my other hand and get it open without a reserve ride.

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you can't make sweeping statements like that based on your own anecdotal or subjective experience as a relatively low-experienced jumper. Show us some numbers to back it up!
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Note that I said I truly believe that we had fewer broken bones in those days. It was strictly my opinion based on cursory personal observation. Whose opinion am I permitted to give?

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By the way mike I want to base a PC-10 but over water
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I am not familiar with a PC-10. If you're talking about base jumping a T-10 please don't do it on anything lower than a terminal jump with a reserve.

I wish I hadn't started this post.

I'm glad you did!

And Mike :

YOU CAN make sweeping statements like that based on your own anecdotal or subjective experience as a relatively low-experienced jumper.

Considering just what that expierence IS!

A lot of the rest of us "don't know it ALL" and like to learn what it was like for a pioneer!

Thanks!

On another note, I wish the spandex pouch on the bottom of our rigs had a release system with a spring mount. I had a pilot chute extraction problem that nearly cost me my life. Being able to pull a handle like a reserve handle is a lost shot option to release the spandex and spring the pilot chute via a launch plate-like assembly.

I saw a guy do that with a large 7 cell ram-air canopy.

It worked fine both times.

Maybe it helped that he made them really right, started at the canopy and worked down to the risers and made sure nothing could get in the open loop. Doing hop'n'pops could've helped too I guess.

Roger Nelson started training AFF using BOC pc's. he modified the spandex pouch to be attached only along one side. the other two used a "zipper" configuration (similiar to wingsuits). he mounted that handle on the left. either JM could thus initiate deployment. video showed the spandex jumping out of the way.

I do not know if Skydive Chicago still uses this configuration. it would permit a jumper to pull left handed, but needs airspeed to function.

there might be a way to tweak it to achieve your goal.

mike dont worry about me im to stupid to get hurt

Note that I said I truly believe that we had fewer broken bones in those days. It was strictly my opinion based on cursory personal observation. Whose opinion am I permitted to give?
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Re-reading your post, Mike, I see you did qualify that one statement, but most of your other statements, which I could argue with, were presented as fact when they were also just opinion, ie the old chutes packed simpler, etc.

As for what opens faster, a 7-cell, base-type square will open MUCH faster then a round. For many reasons. One is that the lines, and the canopy is much shorter and therefore takes less time to play out. Another is that a square will open bottom skin first, and the square footage between round and square is dramatically different, it takes much less time for a square to 'open'. Then, if you're in freefall, there's the factor of weight -- a para-commander canopy weighs in at about 16 pounds, depending on model, material, etc. My skydiving rig weighs in at not much more then that, so the force required to lift a modern canopy out of the container (snatch force?) would logically be much less then the force to lift an older round canopy, especially at low speeds in a BASE environment.

For an example of a fast square parachute opening, I think there is footage on the web of some cutaways performed sub-300' using the Relative workshop's skyhook which dramatically proves the point.

Phil Smith and some of his crew (maybe Randy or Rick could comment on this) worked on a smaller BASE round for low water jumps, but I believe it was to be used only for water jumps because in order to open fast enuf they reduced it in size to somewhere around 10 feet or less, with correspondingly shorter lines as well.

Rounds are great in certain applications, they obviously open well and ofter a malfunctioned round is still landable, or the military wouldn't be still using them in large numbers. But if squares had been around in the '60's I'm sure you and Brian would have been using them.

Small rounds with apex pulled down by a center line... Also, some of the 8 foot round reserves I believe were custom made One can buy tiny rounds (some with the apex pulled down) from hang glider reserve manufacturers. They oscillate like crazy though.

Skypuppy your still comparing skydiving gear to the 60's rounds. This is what they used for BASE. It was BASE gear.

Has the sorcerrer had cutaways sub 200 feet? And is it the same technology as the sky hook? I think both of those are yes, but I'm not 100% sure.

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mike dont worry about me im to stupid to get hurt
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Magot,

My son Brian met you at this year's Bridge Day and was very impressed with you. I don't believe for one second that you are stupid.

By the way, my reply to your last post sounded rather presumptuous when I read it back. I wish I had taken more time with it before I posted it. I know you're an expert base jumper and certainly don't need advice from anyone who has only two base jumps under his belt.

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I see you did qualify that one statement, but most of your other statements, which I could argue with, were presented as fact when they were also just opinion
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Sorry if I came off that way Rob. They were all intended as nothing more than my opinion. Possibly my recollection of the way things were back then were dimmed a bit by the 40 year time gap.

I'll certainly give you the 7 or 8 foot difference in length between the two types of canopies. At terminal velocity that much difference would eat up approximately 46 milliseconds of valuable time. My bad.

Several years ago I talked to Martin Tilley about making a similar modificatin on a BASE rig, and some thoughts he had on that sort of system (including the possibility of running the release around the actual main container itself, so the canopy could be released directly). I'm not sure if he every played with it any more after that, though.

The first time I heard about a PC being constricted by something, I thought of an O-Fck handle. A sling tied directly to your canopy attachment point routed out the same way as the bridle and velcroed in to the side of the rig, so if your pc was constricted, snagged something and was destroyed, bridle cut on something, ect... you could pull like your life depended on it on the O-Fck handle and try to get some canopy in the wind.

Mike started a very interesting discussion. I started out in 1951 with a T-7. When it opened it felt like you were hit with a sledge hammer.The Army than changed to T-10s. The opening was much softer. Neither could be steered to any degree. It was really fun, over 50 years later, to jump the squares. When I was teaching at the Airborne School in 1954 we had students who when making their first jump had never been in an airplane before. None of them froze. I finally had to quit after I got hurt at Moab. I was over 75 years old then.

Pelkey & Guyer - Us newbs haven't a chance now . . . !

NickD
BASE 194

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I started out in 1951 with a T-7. When it opened it felt like you were hit with a sledge hammer.
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Wow, talk about a true pioneer. I was 11 years old when you started jumping. That was many years before the first modded parachutes appeared. I feel like a newbie now.

Jumping the square last year, after a nearly 40 year respite, was just like stepping into the future for me. I'd love to hear about your introduction to the square after all the evolutionary technologies you had under your belt.

My hat is off to you Jim. Thanks for the post.