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Anyone jumping without thumb loops? (i.e. you had them on your suit but removed them because you like a bit less restriction.) Any issues?

I think the thumb loops help me tension the sleeve when I unzip. . . It seems that without them the sleeve would just lide up my amr and bunch up. I don't even notice the thumb loops in flight as I'm usually holding the grippers.
I have a Phantom 2

(when speed buit up) the zppers blasted off in flight in one case..that was a fellow jumper guy i know.. due to lazy zip not 100 % down , but 99% down...andif he had thumb lloops on zippers wouldnt have blown..anyway he tried to zip in flight,(yeah ha, wht a joke) so he went into a track position with arms, stteep track, but no problems after getting stable!!!,, oh no actually there was a problem cuz the right arm blew first so it caused him to flip over and then he unziped th e othe r wing,, thats right! and then what i said....yeah.

remember the zippers (on some suits, at least the ones I know) are tensioned more so by the thumb loops.... something to learn when skyjumping and not decide to do out of the blue on a cliff!!.

Yup. I have jumped some suits with pressurized cufflets and it works well. just hold the grippers past the end of the sleeve. In the TS Xbird I was jumping there was a leading edge foam piece on the front of the arm that stiffened up the wing to be unzipped. It was easy and comfortable.

Yep, the TonySuits rely on having no thumbloops for the easygrab cuffs. These let you grab your toggles without unzipping.

On the first jump "skydive not base" i did in my homemade suit i rushed and didnt put any thumb loops on because i thought i wouldn't need them. It turns out that they are pretty important.. depending on the suit of course. Everything seemed good until the zippers started to come unzipped then before i knew it my sleeves were unzipped to my elbows. Fun times. Put thumb loops on for the second and third jump and never had any problems with the wing zippers. Pretty sure the loops keep the tension on one side of the zipper so the other side cant come undone "as easy" . I like the idea of tensioned cuffs but for my second suit im building I cant use that kind of sleeve with the cable-less cutaway system that i just designed. So in my opinion you might want to think twice before you start hacking away at your loops. Pretty sure whoever thought of putting them there had a logical and important reason for doing so.

Travis - Are you using locking zippers? When you pull the leash it unlocks the zipper, this type of zipper is on most suits and available in most stores - YKK jacket zippers for example. If you try to push or pull the zipper without lifting by the leash/zipper handle, it won't move.

Minimalist Yuri! I've gone without them no problem when things are good. If you have a zipper failure, basically what Travis describes, might be another story. I use them as a backup and for unzipping, no tension while flying on the thumb loops.

Next thing you will tell us is that you are going to cut off your back deflector since you don't use it, then what next!

Thanks guys for all the pros and cons.


Next will be installing a zipper in the same spot for easy diaper change after a jump. Nothing feels better than a fresh diaper after a scary jump! Check out that "Ready To Go" video - after flying into that canyon, the guy does a barrel roll... I wonder if it was a necessity, not just fun.

Nope im going to have a back deflector. I didnt have locking zippers before, but i have some now. That was probably my problem.

ever seen a fighter plane after combat ??? It's called the Victory Roll

exactly, that was a very happy snappy barrel roll of excitement. I'm not sure how to translate into french from english but I can only assume he also shouts something like "woo hoo!!!" (if any one can translate that..