Basejumper.com - archive

I've got 30 or so jumps on my Flik UL 266 4-Vtec. All SO 0-2 sec delays w/ 42 & 48 PCs, except 1 SU skydive and 1 SL. No hard or offheading openings beyond ~30deg have ever been noticed.

Returned from a cross-country BASE trip and found this and a symmetric identical tear on the inside vertical supports of cells 3 & 5. As you can see, it tears across the seams and loadtapes which adjoin the vents and B-line attachment points.

Apex has repaired and reinforced the canopy without charge, and has since updated the UL assembly line to have these seams and loadtapes reinforced. Very helpful and safety conscious guys over there.

Anyway, I'm putting this out there as something to look out for and keep in mind with these ultralite canopies. Probably from the SL opening shock, but no way to know for sure.
Blue skies.

thanks for the update sir

Yep.I hear static line jumps have the highest openning shock of all.

terrible opening shock is right when he uses his 85' bridle for S/L jumps........ or maybe he means shock as in the canopy is trying to inflate while at the same time (fraction of a second) it is being held back by bridle and break cord, with tension right at the attachment point. I would guess that would be enough to cause a tear in the new-to-the-industry ultralite fabric. My guess is the tear started very, very small, and probably just broken stitching and then over the course of a bunch of jumps it finally did its thing... glad you caught it and glad your ok dude

I guess you may be right. Just never realized people were using 85 foot bridles for static line jumps.

those crazies

they must be the newbies, otherwise they would be using 85ft long plastic shopping bags instead.

Are you using a take-away SL device? If so can you post or PM me a picture of it?

do you think the takeaway S/L has something to do with the rip ? can you give a public explanation or PM about that ? i have made one lso and probably many more .
thank you in advance !

thanks for the post. what is the benefit of using ultralite flik for slider off jumps? Why not use regular heavy duty material. The way I had figured it the main benefit is reduction in drag for terminal tracking/wingsuit jumps due to smaller sized rig.

Am I not thinking about some benefit that would occur with slider off jumps???

peace

I've swapped over to jumping my new OSP for all "regular" slider off jumps. There is no benefit to the ultralite slider off. I suppose one could argue for slightly faster openings (less mass for the PC to drag out to line stench) However I and other jumpers watching from the exit have noticed odd inflation surges during sub terminal deployments, hence the OSP as my current duty rig.

That being said, I have no hesitation wearing the ultralite under a sweatshirt for certain occasions.

This is BRILLIANT! I knew there was a way to get "a little more" out of your static line jumps...

subtract a little responsibility for a whole lotta hope

True, but that's what's cool about using the OSP with a Hybrid: slider down annihilation power + low profile sneaky sneak ninjutsu.

Yay, happy!