Basejumper.com - archive

Aug2013 extremely diligent packer, gear in very good cond.

http://vimeo.com/74007341

discuss...

In terms of appreciative inquiry:

1) What he did well:
He worked the problem methodically and kept working the problem until he landed and he worked the problem well enough that he apparently walked away without limping much.

2) What he could have done better:
He should have first performed the tension-knot procedure that probably would have solved the problem almost instantly: stall the canopy to release the tension.

Plan A to clear a tension-knot should always be to stall the canopy to release the tension, either with both rear risers, or both toggles. When the canopy rocks back, the lines go slack and release the tension; in most cases, this clears the tension knot too.

If that doesn't work, then go to Plan B and do the stuff this jumper did to mitigate the problem and minimize the landing impact.

I can see from the video that the jumper did pull both toggles down, but he did not hold them both down long enough to stall the canopy, so the tension never released. Maybe he thought that the control line was tension-knotted (what's easy for us to see on video was not necessarily easy for him to see as it happened) and that's why he released it, but you have to seriously stall it to release the tension, not just yank both toggles down for a moment.

I learned this by skipping past Plan A myself... three times. They were tandems and the DZO was trying to save a few $$$ by stretching linesets way past their recommended number of jumps, so the lines got fuzzy and started tension-knotting. I had three cutaways in two weeks, and one of the senior TIs casually said to me, "Are you stalling the canopy first to clear it before cutting away?"

And I was like "D'OH!" Of course..." I had done more or less what this jumper did, yanking and pulling on stuff, none of which released the tension on the lines. The DZO installed new linesets shortly thereafter (the reserve repack cost far outweighed his lineset savings), but I had a couple of more tension knots before that got done and, sho 'nuff, a quick stall cleared them each time.

The ironic thing is that pulling both toggles down after opening is a first-jump-class basic control check procedure, yet we sorta forget about it as we become more experienced.

Anyway, well done to the jumper for working the problem to a successful landing (AFAIK). Next time, though, try to remember to execute Plan A before going to Plan B.


44

I have a question. Will pulling down on the offending riser then sharply releasing it work? Have you ever heard of this vs. stalling the canopy?

> 2) What he could have done better: He should have first performed the tension-knot procedure that probably would have solved the problem almost instantly: stall the canopy to release the tension.

it might or might not work, but will eat lots of alti and severely limit his options of at least looking where he's going to impact and brace

i thought the 1st action should be to try to compensate the turn and see if u can fly straight.. in his case distortion doesnt seem to be too bad and could be compensated by deep left brake.. he didnt do that, he tried to pump both brakes

in this particulr situation where he had water right in front of his nose the natural reaction should be to just direct yourself towards water by compensating the turn

..and he did stop the turn for a second or two when he pulled the left riser more aggressively... so it WAS possible to compensate and land in the water

but of course of course its easy to handle malfunctions while sipping coffee in front of a computer

( I Say ) . After opening . 1st priority is always Heading . So best choice is . ???

Immediately equally compensating on opposite side of canopy Mal. to fly Heading to direction of water ?
Or :
Immediately work it, by repetitive stalling of Canopy trying to clear the Mal. to make the Canopy flyable ?
..............
....
Not to say or dismiss the invaluable knowledge of Tandem pilot & Canopy DZ experience that undeniable transfers over to the BASE side of life . BUT ,
I think the best choice of both evils Is, to stick to the basic Rule of BASE after canopy opening .
1. - Heading control is 1st Priority .
2. - Abort the Primary LZ & Go-For for the 'OUT'/Secondary LZ .

I sure as fuck am not your best friend . Altitude is your Best Friend . Don't burn-up your Altitude . Get the Heading correction as #1 Rule .
.
.

one more thing....

he said "A-Ha" right after opening (but b4 realizing smth is wrong)

and the canopy replied "Take On Me"


lesson? dont say "aha" until u pop a beer after the jump!

Sorry, no. As I learned one time from Mark Hewitt after doing a sub-300-footer, going to an almost stall actually gives you a few more seconds of air time, not less, and with a big canopy, you don't lose much in a stall before recovery. Plus, you can see around better if you're stalling than you can when you're spinning.

Now contrast this with the altitude he lost in that power dive. Sorry, your math doesn't add up on this point.


And then when it's time to land, then what? Over my years in the sport, I cannot count the number of deaths and injuries that came when someone "tried to compensate" to get a straight-flying canopy and then realized their rate of descent and directional control deteriorated and they either died doing a low cutaway or died from a spiraling impact, or got mashed up from a spiraling impact.

You and Ray both talk about the criticality of heading, and that is fine when you are next to the object. In this case, heading was not a critical path because he was either going to hit water or bushy trees, both of which had their advantages and disadvantages.


Not necessarily true: That water will freeze you quickly. Was there a rescue boat or anybody around? What if he hit the water hard enough to stun himself? If that was me I would have aimed for the trees if I had a choice because the downside is less catastrophic after an expected hard landing. If there was a boat ready to go the instant I hit the water, then maybe water is the better choice, but if not, no way. Trees - 'cause no matter what happens, you still got air to breathe, which goes back to the Three Bs of first responders (in this case, your own self):

Breath
Blood
Bones

Finally, pulling the canopy to a full stall retards the lateral acceleration, which also adds time and reduces spin-generated disorientation.


44

 
Just out of curiosity, how many of these type of incedents have there been. I mean every one hears about the fatalities but some times the nonfatal incedents slip by. For example Some one posted that one nasty spinner into the rocks but then another replied with another non fatal video of another almost identical spinner that I'd never heard about. So this makes three fairly recent ones. I'm just wondering how many nonfatal oh shits are out there in terms of partial canopy malfunctions, friction knots, tail pocket problems, tail gate issues, broken lines, pilot chute entanglements in lines.

It might be interesting to see if there is any correlation between the incedents. For example, slightly over sized PC used at too high of an air speed causing center cell strip and slack in the lines above the pocket or tail gate. Was a Multi used that would support the tail pocket. It might effect how many lines were supported and how many were being pulled out of the primary stow by the slumping canopy. Compromising it by excessive snatch force. I'm not saying that this is a cause. I'm just tossing out an example of some thing that we might see a corilation to in these deployments. Straight out of my ass. But it might give impetus to looking for other better staging options then a tail pocket. Or it might lead in some other totally different direction.

I'm just curious exactly how many we can name over the years. I mean we can talk about how to deal with it but I'm actually more interested in how to prevent it.

Lee

To clarify my comments, I refer to parachuting generally in the post above, not just BASE, when talking about how many deaths and injuries have happened because someone "tried to compensate" for a turn by holding opposite toggle, only to have it get worse as they got closer to the ground.

With a BASE jump, you usually have no reserve option, so that is why I stress a Plan A stall and Plan B whatever-seems-to-be-the-best-thing-left.

There has been a running discussion on the dork zone about the rash of recent fatalities where very experienced people went in under rapidly spinning mains and either cut away too low or didn't cut away at all.

The discussion went deep into the levels of disorientation that occur during spins, and one of the worst problems is moving your head outside the centrifugal force line. As soon as you do that, the disorientation factor goes way big.

The upshot for high-performance canopies? If you haven't fixed it in two revolutions, chop it before the Gs and spin degrade your ability to handle the problem.

I think the same process can be applied to tension knot malfunctions or anything that makes you spin: Go first for the stall, before the spin speeds up, then go to Plan B if Plan A doesn't work.

And finally, this idea applies to jumps where there is no imminent danger of hitting the object from which you jumped. In those cases, Ray is of course right: Heading first, then whatever's next.


44

very strange thinking.. it looks more like u r just trying to save the ground u stood on in your 1st post by all means

1.. u said release tension in the lines by doing stall.. no tension means u r sending yourself into freefall as u removed any force opposing gravity... freefall means lots of altitude eaten quickly. just doing a stall wont release tension, u need to let go of risers or brakes abruptly,,, sending canopy in front of u and recovering.. and thats lots of altitude

2.. again releasing tension is no guarantee tension knot will unravel

3.. raylosli and me r talking about stopping the turn as #1 proirity, not heading as when close to the object.. if u can stop the turn u can fly to water and save yourself without rigging in the air.. and if theres no water u still get more time and lower descent rate than sending yourself in freefall

4.. august water will freeze u quickly? was there anybody around? (at least 2 buddies) hit water hard in a slow speed malfuncion? trees better than water? (r u a cat? ) this is the 1st time i hear about preferring trees to a non moving summer water close to a shore with at least 2 other ppl around and possibly more spectators

 
''2) What he could have done better:
He should have first performed the tension-knot procedure that probably would have solved the problem almost instantly: stall the canopy to release the tension. ''

sadly this option does work only in theory but actually never in reality..
as soon the jumpers experienced the tension knot they find out that such move does not help at all.
most of knots happen between D lines and steering lines, or between D and C lines ( much less)
best cure is to use the good tight rubberband on the tailpocket.

the tension knot is the worst mal. as there is no clear procedure what is best to do. in skydiving - cut away. in base - hope for soft landing and good shoes and well performed PLF..

Agree that the best cure is prevention by proper packing.

Disagree that stalling to relieve tension "does not work at all" and works in theory but "never in reality."

It worked for me each time I've tried it on tandems, which are, like BASE canopies, lightly loaded trucks that tend not to spin up too tight.

Also agree that there is no clear procedure; it is indeed more of a feel kind of thing because tension knot problems sometimes spin you (as in this video) and other times fly fairly straight but make landing well a very dicey proposition. Sometimes a tension knot turns your canopy into a wild horse; other times it's more tame, but the danger can sneak up on you the closer you get to the ground.

To me, the bottom line on this vid is what he did well: he landed it well enough to apparently walk away without limping. You can't really do any better than that. I say that he "could have done better" only as a subset of the 2-question appreciative inquiry technique (What are we doing well? What can we do better?) -- and as a reminder that we do have the stall-to-relieve-tension tool in our emergency procedures toolbox and we should not forget that it's there.


44

> It worked for me each time I've tried it on tandems

maybe it has smth to do with g-forces: snively tandem openings produce low g's and tension knots r weak and easy to shake off;; base openings -high g's and tension knots r strong with lots of residual friction even if tension is released

sure if u r at brento opening at 1500 feet do try stalls
at 200-300ft like here? try to compensate the turn and direct yourself to a safer place to land

+1

http://vimeo.com/49804039

@ 1:07

That looks almost identical to mine. Luckily I hit in the same wings level part of the whole ride.

http://www.basejumper.com/...2;page=unread#unread

 
WTF The video cuts just when it got interesting. Or did the water kill the camera at that point? I suppose I should congratulate both you and the footage on surviving.

Lee

+1. I mean, landing a WS in running water like that. I know that clothes dry faster then bones heal, but I (and yes, that is just me) would have tried for the land. Just too scared of fast running rivers. Been there.

Ok great, so are different canopies with differences in cascade variations between line groups more or less susceptible to tension knots?

e.g. I use a high quality US system. The control line cascade in set brake position is 20cm (8") above C/D cascade.

A leading Europeon manufacture equivalent equipment has control line cascade and C/D cascade at similar level when brakes are set.

Some older canopies seem to have brake cascade below C/D

From a rigging perspective is there an optimum position for less chance of problems rather then performance?

Interesting question. As I recall there was an alteration that was made to one of the early square canopies where they actually went back and shortened the length of the lines above the cascade of the break line to reduce the rate of friction knots. But I can't recall the details of which canopy or the relative lengths of the cascade to the D lines.

Some but not all of these seem to be occurring on wing suit jumps. I remember seeing the vid of the canopy coming all the way back into the burble on deployment. As I understand it he was not aware of it till he saw the rear facing video. I wonder how commen that is eaven if it does not come all the way back. Let's say there is a... negative airflow. call it burble suck. Normally when you extract the canopy upwards the airflow with the smaller burble is still mostly upwards. But with a wing suit and the larger burble the pilot chute on it's long bridle in clean air may actually be pulling the canopy through a negative flow, down wards flowing air for lack of a better word. So it's actually exacerbating the center cell strip pulling the pack job apart trying to actually suck the fabric of the canopy back towards the jumper. Sounds fucked up and strange but I never would have believed that video. I'm wondering if maybe free packing on a wing suit jump might be part of the problem.

I don't know if the statistics bear out a greater number of tension knots on wing suit jumps. I don't know if there is enough really good high speed rear facing video to tell if this is an issue. I think you would need a high speed camera to really see it.

This might simply be a issue of poor body position with a large suit. Or we might want to think about a cleaner deployment. Maybe a sleeve or a bag to give a cleaner package that can be pulled through the burble to line stretch, past the burble before it is released. I know it goes against common wisdom but I actually jumped a sleeve for years. So it's not like it doesn't work.

Lee

Funny you should mention a sleeve. Mark Hewitt made a "3/4 sleeve" for use with the Sorcerer. It was about 2.5-3 feet long. The upper third of the canopy went in flat, then you did one s-fold of the bottom two thirds and then closed it with two locking stows like a standard skydiving d-bag. The lines were figure-8ed into a tail pocket-like pouch. This never really caught on in the general BASE community even though it worked really well and IIRC had no appreciable downside even for just standard BASE jumps. Given your comments on what's going on with wingsuit deployments, it seems to me that going back to the future with a sleeve-like deployment device could have real merit for two key reasons:

1) It totally eliminates center-cell stripping; and

2) It should reduce tension knots and premature slider drop because neither slider nor canopy get exposed to the air until line deployment is essentially complete.

I still have the bag. I'll try to take some pix and post them to this thread.


44

Don't bother. I still have mine in the closet.

Lee

No... please do bother. I'd like to see it.

I didn't care for that sleeve and made about 50 slider up jumps with it in the 5 to 7 sec range ad found I had a marked increase in off heading openings, I was with someone who did a short slider down jump and had a 180 and watched them rear riser off the wall all the way to the ground (the person that built the sleeve), we called it a slag and I think sleeves and bags are a bad idea in the subterminal environment. My friend Bremo modified his with stabilizers, we discarded the slags after about 100 or so jumps combined, and lots of line twists and off headings.
Just my experience, credit to Mark though, a real innovator.
regards, B

I had pretty decent luck. I was jumping 2000 ft antennas so I was pretty much at terminal. I was deploying it from a sorcerer which had a nice wide tray so it did not catch on the sides. It accordened out with three folds in the sleave. I've also jumped it from a single canopy rig at terminal. but that's a rellitivly small number of jumps. It was also a wide tray and lose for the canopy and sleeve. The canopy was also rather soft in the sleeve so it was less prone to getting turned or spun.

I put a lot of jumps on it from the sorcerer. I really didn't have an issue with the sleeve turning causing off headings. I did seem to have a bit higher rate of off heading openings from the canopy turning after bag strip during the "snivel" before the slider came down. It sounds strange but I think it was simply from the fact that I was getting softer, "nicer", openings. Rather then spanking me the canopy had more of a chance to hunt for heading with the slider up. Or it might have just been in my head.

I didn't know any one that really jumped it sub term back then. It was really a terminal thing. Any way I think it might have merit for wing suits.

Lee

never used mine for sub-terminal jumps, only terminal.,

This discussion veered into wingsuit deployment anomalies and the sleeve/slag could indeed be a solution to the wingsuit-deployment specific issues Lee raised.

And yes, Mark was a big-time innovator. I wonder how many people reading this thread know that he invented the SOP "line-mod" line release after he spiraled into a tree off El Capitan when he had a lineover?


44

what u guys r doin is reverse engineering in a sense that u r going back in time.. what u'll come up with if u dont stop your silly nostalgy for dusty bags in your closet is a circa 1980's base system with all its prob's lol


bags are death in base.. if theres some prob some entanglement bag stays closed (= black death) while freepacked canopy still gives some chance for partial inflation

think forwrd not backward
what can we do without sacrificing the simplicity of current base system to prevent tensionknots?

i'm too stupid 2 come up wiht a solution.. u guys seem to be too clueless we need bill booth of base!!

Easy, design a canopy without lines

OR

develop some sort of tensioned release system like a retractable clothesline!


Of corse the first bit of turbulance you encounter will cause the lines to retract

I think this jumper made GREAT decisions with the amount of time he had and the quickness that it all happened in. He probably thought line over with a spin, and was able to easily release his toggles, which have been called high pull toggles for a while because they take time and aren't super easy to release in a spin... This jumper obviously practiced and was able to efficiently make the release, so props for that. Then he realized that's not what the problem was and reduced the spin as much as he could to fly the canopy flat with a slow downward speed. In a perfect world he would be able to spin the canopy towards the water and then fly it straight, but often yarding on the riser to correct, while the other riser is already loaded due to the knot, could have caused the canopy to stall out. This may be why you see the canopy straighten out and then go back into a turn. He may have had to release the left riser to prevent the canopy from a taco'd stall which would have put him back into free fall. I think this jumper made excellent decisions in the time he had, and proved it by most likely walking away. A lot of people would recommend to stall the canopy to release, but you A) have to notice that its a tension knot and not a line over B) Have the altitude to "Play around" with the scenario. I would assume the jumper was around 400-500' upon deployment and didn't have the "play time" to mess around. NICE WORK! I would be stoked to have the same reactions for the 20 seconds I would have to save my own life from black death.

Lucky man, not easy to say what to do when we are not in the situation! But perhaps it is better to not take the toggles off and let the canopy flight at low speed (we see in video that it increase the spin to take them off)? The hands are also free to control the direction with risers and try to catch and pull one time the lines with knot to try to release it... but sure the ground was close! Good job, no injury this is the more important.

I have been asked to make this video private as social media begins to take this to a larger viewing audience which was not the intention of posting the video.

If you think you have something to contribute to our tension knot discussion and feel the need to see another incident video pls pm me.

Sponsered Athlete Hollywood BASE: "If it were me I'd of evened out the canopy, steered towards the landing area and used the extra speed for a swoop to stand it up like boss."

I like your style. Ou forgot to check to make sure the gopro is on and still angled appropriately

Hey guys.

This was my little close call. And i´ve decided to tell my story.

I will try to explain what i was thinking and what happend on this jump.

Starting with the last seconds of freefall. I was following my friend when i saw him pull, i turned abit to the left to avoid coming straight towards him. The opening felt completly normal, it was soft but quick as usual.
When the slider got down i was looking at my mate and riser turned abit in his direction. Perhaps thats why i did not notice the canopy turning untill after i popped the brakes and the canopy kept turning without me giving input. I looked up to se that there where some kind of mess (knot) i did not look at it long enough to se exactly what was entangeled but i noticed that the tail was deformed.
My nr 1 priority then became to cutaway the brakeline. After the cutaway i did not noticed any change. The speed was picking up. I looked down to see where i was headed, which was the road.
I realised that hitting it with the that speed was no option so i pulled as hard as i could on the left riser and tried to go for the water. But as the rotation stopped for abit i understood that it was not possible to make a left turn because it was about to stall and that i had to let the canopy continue its rotation.(but now i knew that it was possible to stop the rotation for a few seconds) When it turned almoast another 180degrees i saw that i was headed for the road and did one last hard pull on the riser to hit the forest insted.

The knot was in the C/D lines 6,7 and 8 plus the outer brakeline. I was unable to find it after landing.

In the attachment i´ve put pictures of how much input i had to do in order to stop this rotation. The pictures is 2-3seconds before landing.

I think its important to atleast think about what you would do in this situation, because it can happen to anyone, anytime.

This happend on the canopies 49th opening.

I always untwist my brakelines everytime i pack and i´ve always thought that tension knots where the result of old lines, poor stowing or twists in the brakelines. Well i guess not

It's asking for a password. :/

More likely, popping the brakes allowed the canopy to go into full flight which exacerbated the effects of the tension knot.

Why? What did you hope to achieve? They are called "What Line Over" toggles not "What Tension Knot" toggles.

Of course nothing changed. What were you expecting to happen? I was also amused by the guy in this current video wasting time cutting away his toggle.

These things can contribute to tension knots but are by no means a prerequisite.

The rest of your ordeal seemed pretty heads up. Get your wing flying level, then aim for the softest thing you can reach.

did u use a tailgate?
if yes how do u do it?

good job saving yourself
regardless of what www experts like me say

Yes i agree that popping the brakes was not the best thing to do. But like i said, i did not notice the tension knot before i did it.


The tail was deformed, so i knew that the brake lines where involved. I was hoping to clear the knot or atleast reduce the speed of the rotation.



On this jump i did not use a tailgate.


Thanks! its good to hear what people think

Muscle Memory is faster and more powerful than
one's cognitive ability in an excited state, hence
a jumper is likely to have toggles in hands and
un-stowed as they become aware of a problem.

I wasn't exactly saying don't release the brakes. Just that the problem will definitely get worse with added airspeed. However, I would definitely discourage people from cutting away their toggles in any situation than a line over.

The deformation is caused by the cascades being involved in the tension knot causing the canopy to be deformed laterally more so than vertically. So releasing the toggle will have nearly no effect on the situation. The few tension knots I have seen that did involve a drastic vertical shortening of a line resulted in that line breaking on opening.

Did you try flying the canopy straight with just the opposite toggle? Or did you just go straight to the opposite riser? Just thinking that if you could achieve level flight with the toggle alone the canopy would not be so close to it's stall point.

Potentially noob question that I don't think has come up yet:

Is there a fast, surefire way to differentiate a line over from a tension knot? Obviously with some looking, it'll be aparent, but if you've only got a second.....

Line overs make your canopy look like a bow tie, tension knots don't.

Yes. They teach it to AFF students.

Yup. I remember being taught that, but thought I might be missing something, so I asked a question hoping for a helpful response.

Anyway, that was my thinking in my actions. What was yours?

In my case i could see that one of my brakelines where involved in the knot. If the knot was caused by a brakeline, would it not be some chance that the knot would clear by relieving the tension?

I was talking about the small deformation caused by the outer brakeline beeing trapped in the knot. Which was easy to se in just that second i looked at it. Thats why i cut it.

You are probably right. I tried for a second to stop the rotation with the toggel, it was when i could not stop it I looked up to se the knot in the first place. I could have kept trying to get level with the toggel, but i didnt.

I was thinking that I was pointing you in the appropriate direction to find your answer.

No. The tension knot is caused by the tension on the C/D cascade AND the tension on the control line. So cutting away the control line only releases half of the problem.

But the deformation that you seen was from the control line being pulled forwards into the C/D cascade, not from the control line being pulled downwards. So releasing the line will not fix the problem. Even after the lower control line had been released the upper cascade would still have been getting pulled forwards into the tension knot

I have no clue if I am right I was just asking about your experience. I have seen it go both ways.

Has anyone tried front riser in opposite direction to even out the turn? Obviously you will have greater forward speed, but perhaps directional control is worth the trade.....

Not at you Aussie_Stone.
If altitude is your friend, One can use the knowledge from the CRW jumpers that you have gleened from their forums. If you are low.....(finish the equation).
Take care,
space