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So a friend and I were jumping Perigee Pros from the bridge last weekend. Me blackjack, him, seven.

Slider off, with brakes set with typical slider off line-ring-toggle packing deep brakes. I have hundreds of jumps on my rig, his is much newer...

I twice, and he also, had one brake stick where after the toggle was released, the brake line catseye stayed in the white loop sewn to the riser.

I did not see the problem (too busy driving 1st time wondering why my canopy was turning, 2nd time night jump too dark to see but I felt it release when I yanked down) - The solution was to yank the toggle down past the deep brake setting to get the loop to release...

Needless to say, the self-turning canopy post toggle release was not what I wanted...

Has anyone else had this problem? I can't recreate it on the ground. Perhaps the cat's eye is wedging into the loop on the opening shock?

 
Even though I have never had an issue with the line hanging in the brake setting, fully clearing the toggles is a very good habit to get into.

Each time you grab the toggles, try to evenly pull the toggles down to the point in the control stroke where the brakes are set. Do it on every jump and it will become a natural response. There are a couple of advantages to this: it ensures that both brakes release together and it also prevents the canopy from surging forward when the brakes are released.

I like to jump dirty low objects so preventing a surge helps save every possible foot of altitude. I also usually go for toggles with big offheadings and using this method helps to build the muscle memory that will prevent me from only releasing one toggle if I ever find myself staring at a wall.

sorry to ask, are u pre-tensioning the brakes when u pack ? i pull it tight after i set it up to make sure i did it right, to limit the damage to the line, and so there is no jamming.. just a guess.

good luck

matt_f_001,

Are you a matt with a dog that likes sunflower seeds? If so, hi... Yes, I am learning that I need to pull "harder" to clear those brakes... I already had surge control in the master plan. As you pointed out, my concern is an off heading where I dig deep on one side, but fail to clear the other in a quick reaction.

Sinjin, yes, I pre-tension.

Hahah, yep. I cleaned up sunflower poops out of the backyard for a week

My go to for off headings is to bury the toggle that I need to turn with and leave the other one stowed till I'm well into the turn. In this way I'm doing a braked turn, and I can focus on getting just the one toggle. Is there some issue with this method that I am missing?

As Matt said practice releasing your brakes properly by pulling your toggles down below the brake set, and not just pulling the toggles off the velcro. Also getting in the habit of not letting them up right away, or quickly will keep your canopy from surging. This will save your ass, or your legs, when you REALLY need it!

These are very basic skills that you should have been taught by your mentor, or course instructor

It's happened to me a few times as well, but other than that I have virtually nothing useful to add.

Whoa my friend. I understand these concepts. If I wanted my skillset to be critiqued, I would have posted on dropzone.com... I appreciate the advice, just not the tone. We have met in person, I know you are a cool guy, so I am just giving you a hard time for giving me a hard time.

Regardless, I don't like my brakes hanging up, so I want to figure out how to fix it.

As I said, it happened twice. The first time it caught me off guard as I was in a deep-brake-avoid-surge turn right after opening doing a 90 degree turn left. As I raised my hands slowly, I felt slack on the right side and the canopy turned a bit. I immediately knew the problem and fixed it... Turns out my deep-braked-turn to the left, caused the right hand to be a tad too high to clear the brake loop, but still deep enough to feel tension...

The second time it happened, two jumps later, night, I went again to brakes after opening to avoid a surge. As I did so, I felt the right side have slack in the milliseconds after I popped the toggle before my arms were lowered, and once I got deep enough I felt the line clear with a pretty firm pop... I rather not have to pop it off everytime, so I am trying to figure out what might be the cause, especially since I have a lot of jumps trouble free on this gear.

Happened to me last month on perigee pro but I'm rookie as f@%#. I do remember looking at the velcro stow thinking I didn't like them before I ever had a jump. I took it as a valuable lesson and the fix would be do what lonnie said......and try not to crap my pants next time!

I learned, while looking at a rock, that if I leave one stowed at first and bury the other, that the turn on my canopy is too slow for my liking... My brakes are pretty darn deep, so the net difference between both sides is not enough to make it turn effectively unless I let the other side up a tad... My canopy likes me to bury one side as deep as I can go, and raise the other hand slowly until the turn is the speed I like... Therefore I have to release both.

I would avoid that route. If you aren't going for rear risers during an offheading, then being in control of both toggles is going to be better. This is especially true if your brakes are very deep. My approach is to simultaneously pull both toggles down to prevent a surge, and then continuing that toggle input in the desired direction of turn. If there is clearance, then as I am doing this, I begin to raise the opposite toggle so that side of canopy can drive the canopy around and away from the wall.

Also, if you are using toggles for offheading recovery, it is really important that you set your control lines to a length that will allow you to back the canopy up on toggle input alone. If you're control lines are too long, then your turns will be slower and you won't have the control range that might be necessary to turn and/ or back yourself off of a wall. When in braked flight, I set my control lines so that my stall point is just a couple of inches above my hip. Everybody has a preference and opinion about that but for me, it does the job well.

I used this exact technique a few months back... perfect 180 on an 8 second delay. I was able to turn the canopy completely around before the slider hit the connector links.

are your DBS tuned or still factory? the reason i ask is i feel that a factory set DBS could have a lot less tension upon opening on the break loop. That and not clearing the break setting after releasing the breaks/toggles may contribute to a hang up. just a thought.

I also jump a P Pro with a blackjack and have about 70 jumps on it and never experienced that before. I find it hard to believe its a container issue and more likely a technique issue. i too could not replicate this on the ground.

I always try to un stow my breaks and remain at that same tensioned point as my deep break setting upon opening to keep from surging forward. do you do this to or do you un stow into full flight?

i may be wrong and please dont think im criticizing you or your technique. just my 2 cents.

all valid points with clearing brake lines all the way down, and tdogs point that a factory brake setting that is not so deep will be more prone to cause something like this.

this actually happens a lot, depending on gear manufacturer, what materials they use for the white brake loop, and how long they make it.

the last adrenaline risers i bought, have a rather stiff piece of spectran while the last set was pretty soft. (different patch of material, maybe different conditioning).

but this is at all not a problem as long as you properly pop your brakes all the way down.

i would stay away from the popping only one brake on severy offheadings.
- if you have a good dialed in deep brake setting, you will turn very very slow with one brake still set, and most likely just stall one side, or the complete canopy, see video below at 1:55, hes doing exactly that...
http://vimeo.com/28703835
- if you have a clean 180 and have to stall the canopy straight away, being conditioned on going for one toggle can ruin your day...

take care!

This happened to me once.99.99% of my jumps are SD. The flight plan was a right turn just after opening, sink it in then flare and land. I didn't notice it until time to sink it. I popped both toggles and let the left one up and put lots of input to the right one. My turn was a little slower than I liked. At the time I thought it was the winds. It wasn't until time to sink that I felt the left one release. I contributed it to a lazy grab. Since then, I'm a little more deliberate with my toggle grabs and haven't had that problem again. Yet.

- once for me on a BASE jump
- once for my jump buddy on a BASE jump
- plenty of times on tandems

for me and my jump buddy, this made turning away from an obstacle fairly challenging. I realized just popping the brakes and letting the stowed part of the lines fly out is very lazy. it also lets the canopy surge a bit.

since I started flaring deep to clear the brakes, and then controlling the speed I release from the flare, I have not had an issue.

Tuned deeper by an inch or two...


See my post earlier... Happened twice, two different scenarios. First in a post deployment deep brake turn, second I felt it stick and pop off as I was surge controlling on an on-heading opening... The mind f*** I discovered is that if you choose to do a deep braked turn on opening, you will feel tension and it will feel cleared until you come out of the turn.... I thought I would have felt slack earlier, but I did not... So I gained some valuable experience. Never the less, I am hoping to identify the cause to prevent the hangups in the future...

How worn are your lower control lines? Are you using Asylum risers?

I've seen this happen many times. The immediate fix is to pop the toggles all the way down, because the control line almost always slides off if you pull past the brake setting.

The contributing causes I've identified are:

1) Material used for the white loop. Thicker and higher friction materials seem to hang up more often. Thinner loops are generally harder on the lower control lines at the brake setting, though, so there is some trade off. The Asylum risers are generally not prone to hang up in my experience.

2) Worn brake settings at the the lower control line. The more "fuzziness" around the brake setting, the more commonly this appears to happen. I'd theorize that this has to do with the amount of friction between the white loop and the brake setting.

hey Travis,

i totally agree with what Matt said. the problem you had is simply random friction/tension in the white loop combined with a weak toggle clear. i've had it happen in the past too. it's nice when it happens on something like a bridge though. now you know.

i was jumping dragon's nest in moab years ago, and trying to fly to the towers... when i realized i was not fighting a crosswind, it was actually the line stuck like you described.

clear that shit yo!

How new are the loops. I've never had that happen in probably 800 jumps on the two setups you mention, but weirdly did on a troll because I didn't fully clear and the loops were almost brand new. If you're used to jumping something else, I've found that how far you Pull to clear gets in your muscle memory and can very from setup to setup

I'm not one to preach since my first Earth jump put me landing an arms length from the cliff face after only clearing one toggle but clearing both from an already deep brake setting with an on heading opening can fly you backwards into what you lept from if not brought back to positive flight soon enough.

Happened on borrowed gear on my first 2 base jumps. I didn't notice it on the first jump at all, just seemed like the canopy was acting really weird and couldn't get it to turn and I wasn't thinking clearly(it was my first jump after all). I noticed it on my second jump after 4 seconds and then cleared it. I haven't jumped that setup since so can't give any more input.

When packing, I always pull tension on the brakes now and when releasing brakes, I always bring the toggles down to my abs. Haven't had a brake setting stick since.

Tdog,

I have had this happen to me twice on my PPRO/ Seven while jumping slider down. Other jumpers have commented on having the same problem. I have made it my procedure, when clearing my brakes, to not only pull the toggles down but laterally as well. Since incorporating this technique I no longer have this problem. My 2cents hope it helps

Thanks for the advice. You both made some good points. I am going to have to do some practicing and rethink my approach for correcting off headings. I have had one really close call where I used the one toggle method to turn it around, and it felt really slow, but when I watched the video it looked almost instant.

On my earlier jumps I noticed this happening a few times. I've since made a habit of making sure to pass the DBS immediately. However, the times I noticed it in the past it was 100% the excess being trapped in the velcro, not the loop hanging up in the cat's eye. I consciously put less line hinging out the bottom of the velcro "sleeve" now. It hasn't happened since.

Bro I wasn't critiquing your skillset, more who taught ya. Give me the name so I can flame them on Dorkzone.COM

I always taught my students to be sure when they release their toggles, that they pull down far enough to make sure they go past the brake set, because this can happen. Once your muscle memory has you doing this, the likelihood of this happening again is low, and if it does happen, you'll know it immediately and just pull down again a little further.

However, now when someone comes to you and says they've had a brake not release you can laugh and tell them what they need to do to fix that, but bust their balls first!

don't mean to beat a dead horse, but I have seen the "one toggle stowed one toggle buried" method used and almost end up in VERY bad situations before...keeping one part of your canopy braked (stowed) while working the other toggle will result in bad situations most of the time...on tight objects, it will result in nasty situations most of the time. Just my two cents...from a recovering cripple :)

I appreciate the input. I went straight from fjc to jumping by myself, so I 'm sure I've developed some bad habits.

See the attached diagram.
It is for a dedicated no slider rig.
It solves the prob but as the others said, tighten up your technique.
Take care,
space

Do you have a photo of this? Seems like it would be bulky and cause the velcro towards the top of the toggle to peel and maybe come off coming out of the container....?

i have no idea what's going on in that diagram.

Blitz, look close, it allows you to bypass the white line. Some swoopers like to add a second guide ring at the soft link on skydiving risers. They set their brakes at the normal guide ring using the method in the drawing.

Push the cateye through the guide ring then put the toggle in as normal. The excess line comes out the top.

You need very stiff toggles for this (which you should have anyway) since the opening shock will be taken by the toggle instead of the white loop.

It's easier to do with looped and sewn cateye with the lower (from cateye to toggle) finger trapped on separately

gotcha... i understand now... just needed a description of the drawing.

i mean, how can not stowing the toggle on the riser/velcro solve the problem!?

I just recently had a toggle hang up on a Perigee pro and Apex WLO's. it had nothing to do with the container or risers but defiantly the APEX WLO's.

attached is a video screen shot of the toggle as im pulling down to release it. notice how the riser is being pulled with it.

you can see that the sewn in white riser loop is caught under the edge of the fabric on the toggle where the release pin inserts into the toggle.

this was on a friends rig. i have the Adrenalin base brake release toggles on my rig and this could not happen as the cable inserts into the bottom of the toggle.

Just figured i would share. ill post a video as soon as i upload one.

that looks nasty how may pulls did it take to clear? good thing it was the bridge

Very nice.

i got it on the second pull but it was a long sustained hard pull before it released.

edit to add video link: https://vimeo.com/42809010

So, I know on the apex WLO's they melt a hole with a hot knife to stick the pin into, so the white loop got stuck on that hot knifed lip? Adrenaline base are definitely the way to go, they rock.

why are you jumping wlo toggles when you're routing the brakeline outside the slider grommet?

One more reason to not use linemod.

-rm has a point. I see that the toggle is pushed too deep and it is not apparent that the riser guide ring is used in the stowing of the brake which would constitute a mistowed brake in my book.
take care,
space

it's hard to tell for sure, but that was my first impression as well.

possible improperly set brakes... and seems maybe at a minimum you could rectify this problem by not setting the toggle so deep in the loop.

here is a frame showing the stowed break during deployment. best frame i could get and no way to be 100% but it looks to me that the breaks are set properly. you can see the guide ring and it appears to be tensioned with the break line passing right behind it with the white loop running through the cats eye then the ring then the toggle.

probably most likely due to setting the toggle too deep.


i will rectify the problem by not using WLO's. I have heard others say they have had similar hang ups with them slider up and down.

yeah, looks correct there.

WLOs are obviously unnecessary on slider down/off jumps, and probably only an extra liability as well...

that being said, i've been jumping with them for a while on one of my rigs, both up and down, and have never had any issues.

i said it somewhere else as well, but i only have them because they were given to me. on my slider up rig (profile/feather) i made my own line over toggles that are simple, and IMO superior in function and reliability. i just can't see spending $85 on a toggle.