Basejumper.com - archive

Please let me start by emphasising how much I love my velcro Perigee II, and on slider down jumps would not swap it for any pin rig on the market today. That being said, I feel it would be beneficial to share a recent experience that might help others. A couple of days ago I made a jump from a popular Swiss Valley, with my Perigee II and standard Phoenix Fly tracking gear.
It was the second jump of the day, and I was the low man on a three way, another tracking suit and a wingsuit. I took around 8-9 seconds delay before experiencing what felt like the canopy lifting off my back just as I was reaching for the PC. I found an empty BOC pouch, and immediately reached around the back of the container to peel the velcro and get something out before impact if it had not already been extracted, but experienced an opening canopy just as I was doing so. Due to my poor body position (having twisted around to reach the shrivel flap) I got a 120 off heading which was dealt with without issue.
I was using a 38" Apex vented PC, and a bungeed slider on the Mojo 280 canopy. The shrivel flap on the Perigee had around 20-30 jumps on it, while the hook velcro has around 80-90. Both were inspected by a reputable BASE rigger before the trip and given the go head. I have around 150 jumps on velcro, and would consider this combination to be in good overall condition, with a good pack job. I have jumped it at terminal around 20 times before, and probably another 50 times at sub terminal slider up (I would consider the KL tower, and at least a couple of jumps in the Valley as sub-terminal).
I have a couple of ideas as to what could have caused this - either the PC removed itself from the BOC and caused a standard deployment, or the velcro peeled and caused a horseshoe malfunction that extracted the PC by itself. I pack the PC in a way that promotes its extraction upon loading of the bridle in the event of this happening, and feel that the latter situation was the most likely. I have since retired my Perigee II from terminal jumps, despite the fact that it has a tuck tab and is somewhat designed for high speed airflow. I have seen many terminal jumps made with old school velcro rigs with no tuck tabs or other protection, and am not drawing any solid conclusions as to the suitability of your particular container combination.
But I would say that it wasn't much fun to have a premature

Fuck, glad to hear you are ok. I was looking at getting a perigee II for my first rig... I still will, I just wont take it on a terminal tracking jump. I bet once you were safely on the ground you were grinning from ear to ear from the rush.

changed my velcro last year or so and since used it also with ws, never had an issue and hope never will, but one never knows. Im interested on your PC packing method that promotes extraction upon loading of the bridle. Can u please post some pictures.

How many jumps do you have on that BOC? Is the elastic getting old at all?

maybe you moved a bit on exit or on way to exit and did not check gear on exit...

but then again why take a velcro rig to a terminal wall..i saw some really good footage of a guy in norway this year of a velcro rig peeling on jumping...he then decided to not jump the velcro ever again on terminal...

glad ya ok mate but velcro = slider down

my 2 cents.

 
What a surprise, we never would've guessed velcro isn't for high-speed air...startling and shocking for sure! I've been doing slider down packed jumps with a paraglider, and nothing has gone wrong both times I did it, so it must be that nothing is able to go wrong.

Hey Olly, pleased to hear you are OK mate.
If it is the rig I think it is, have you replaced the BOC?
If not I would put it down to that personally.
it was not the usual BOC material from memory and always seemed kind of non elasticated to me.

Hey Jools, cheers for the input. It's definitely a possibility, another reason why it's being retired from terminal jumps, although it fit the 38" pretty well. It's been used for slider down and the associated larger PC's for a while now, so that could have added to a loss of grip.
If anyone is interested in a packing method for PC's that help to increase the chance of extraction during a horseshoe malfunction, search Youtube for bsgermain pc. I don't follow it exactly, but the theory is the same. Of course this is no excuse or replacement for not maintaining gear to prevent a horseshoe type malfunction in the first place.

I tried to find it but nothing came up. Do you have a link?

Edit: Scratch that here it is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axCeYlY_6io Funnily enough that's the method I have been shown from the start.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axCeYlY_6io

thanks for posting this, reminds me of the super mushroom...only easier : )

gonna try this, probably a good idea to change my closing loop as well. horseshoe malfunctions scare the shit outta me.

As a horshoe is something you really do not want to experience and can be really hard to solve (if the bridle can have enough tension to block the PC from extraction) I can only endorse this packing method.