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hi, can anyone tell me if it is possible for a pilot chute to tear due to the bridle being fouled on opening?


edit for thread title ~TA

I am not aware of any cases where this has happened.

I do know of several cases in which the bridle entangled the PC during deployment. I do not believe the PC was torn in any of these cases. In two of these cases, a fatality resulted. A choked off PC is pretty much a nightmare scenario with a pretty low probability of survival.

I suppose this could be possible if you leave your pc in direct sunlight for a week or two significantly weakening the material and then your bridle entangles with the pc. But you would have to be pretty blind to hook up a rotted pc to your rig so hopefully the answer is no.

Here's how to write it, and you can have this gratis . . .

"The night was moist. I tried hard to shake off the feeling I was being watched but I'm so vain I always feel like I'm being watched. Gaining the ledge finally, I stopped to consider my position. I'm pretty high up and at the same time pretty low down. A position I was eminently familiar with but mostly paid no never mind. In the next several seconds my world would either change dramatically or not at all. And I've never be able to fathom, ahead of time, which way might be better. Stepping closer to the edge my foreboding became worse. Was I, after all, just a character in some wuffo's book, and oh boy, that was a new one, but I shook that off too. I reached back for the reassuring touch of my pilot chute and stepped off into the silent night. And then I flew. I flew into the darkness picking up delicious speed and wishing it could go on forever. But I was, like always, freefalling into a corner of time, and I had to bank some of that time for the walk away. So I reached back and tossed my pilot chute and heard it tangle, and then rip, and as I went faster and faster I realized this was it, this was the end. But, like always the end never comes. It's right about then a 12-year old decides to put down the flashlight and go to sleep.

Then the next night it begins again. The night was moist . . ."

NickD
BASE 194

Excellent reading, you should write a book!

Solid prose man!!!