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So far I have not BASE jumped with a D-bag
nor seen one used in person. I have seen
one D-bag up close and had a few questions.

Notice: I am just asking questions to learn
from you smart guys and gals, not going to
build or try anything today. But feel free to
tease me if my ideas below are stupid.

OK, so the handles and lanyard make sense.
But what I do not understand is why the bag
was the size it was and the way it closed. It
appeared you would need to fold the canopy
to put it in. Definitely not as much as one
would on a skydiving main but more than
the pack tray of a BASE container.

SIZE:

My novice idea would be to make the bag the
same size as my canopy after I have flaked it
and narrowed it to the width of the pack tray.

CLOSING:

My novice idea would be to make the bag a
tri-fold container so the canopy is laid on top
of the bottom piece, micro-flaked, tail-gated,
etc. then the other 2 pieces could be folded
on top of it and velcro-ed together, which
would prevent disturbing the pack job.


In my mind it seems the deployment would
go: lines out of the tail pocket, primary stow,
and then canopy slides out of pouch putting
you at line stretch 20 feet below the exit.

The first direct bags were just skydiving d-bags with no handles and a tether before Velcro BASE rigs were widely available. Once the BASE rigs appeared the real BASE direct bags did too. And, at least the ones we used, were the same size as the container. But generally early Velcro rigs were a lot shorter and deeper than current ones.

Two issues I see with your idea of a long narrow bag is it would be flimsy and awkward to hold. It may even bend a little to the point the canopy could get bunched up somewhere in the bag during deployment. (It really whips out of there with a lot of force). And I've never used the tail pocket on a DB, as the lines are stowed across the mouth of the bag. And if you did use the tail pocket how would you close the bag?

Stack folding the canopy isn't too big a deal if you are used to it. Look at what riggers do to skydiving reserves that are going into freebags.

Just as an aside, the biggest thing to be careful about is the bag holder somehow 180's the bag during removal from the container, as that's always nasty. And it's why when I hear someone say they just handed their DB to some passer by it makes me wince . . .

NickD

lucky you, most of the people i jump with qualify as Dbags at least some of the time...


Its Base Bitches

Would you then use bungies to stowe the lines over the mouth - as with normal skydiving?

There is an article on Marty's site that explains how to pack a direct bag.

thanks stitch

here is the link for anyone else interested:

http://www.asylumbase.com/Asylum_Frames.htm

Direct link to the pdf file

http://www.asylumbase.com/adobepdf/dbag.pdf

I had a bag like that built about 10 years ago. The two things I'd keep in mind (which Nick touched on):

1) Put some stiffener material in the bag so that it holds it's shape.

2) When holding the bag, you should pull your hands out away from each other, to prevent deformation of the bags shape.