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Hi guys I've been thinking about some ideas to prevent a bridle-pilot chute entanglement and came out with this. Just s fold half the bridle and tuck it in the side flap firmly using a piece of velcro to keep it together, and pack the remaining bridle and pilot chute as usual. Can't help but having a bit of a worry with a possible horse shoe malfunction, but velcro does a good job keeping the hole bulk in place, at least when not exposed to wind, and it should not come out in the first place. I'm not trying to invent the wheel here but just wanted to share the very basic idea to hear some solid opinions, and of course, i'm not thinking of trying it out in the base environment. Here's a video of the deployment https://vimeo.com/88097674

Or you can do this...

http://vimeo.com/26274995

If you do that method well, it works great.

If you do it poorly, though, it's worse than the traditional method (bridle inside PC) because you can extract the entire wad of bridle all at once.

To see what I mean, use that method and wrap the bridle too high up the side of the PC, then throw the PC out in your packing area and watch the whole bridle pop out. Then do it again more carefully and watch the bridle feed cleanly out of the BOC.

two jumpers i personally know had knots in the bridle after what felt like a hesitation, and another two that had fully grown bridle-pc entanglements (->knot around the pc). (each one ws, one ts)
for those two with the full entaglement pc was still strong enough to pop the pins but not to lift the canopy off their back which happened when they changed their position in air.

all of those jumps have one thing in common, they had a very weak toss (pull out'n' let go) or snagged a finger on the handle, dumping the pc directly into their burble.

imagine how your system would perform in that case. it will maybe helps against entanglement, but also maybe keep you pc from getting out of your burble.
i think restricting the bridle would lead to more problems than it would help.

Or just throw your PC to bridle stretch.

I use this method and agree, wrapping the bridle too high on the PC will have an adverse effect (no science to back it, just lot of rear camera footage). In addition to making progressively smaller bites of the bridle prior to stowing, I like to separate the PC from the bridle slightly prior to jumping. I do this with the rig on my back and suited up. By pinching the bites with the left hand and pulling slightly on the handle with the right, I can make sure the two separate smoothly.

That will certainly solve a lot of issues, and I wholeheartedly agree that you should throw the PC like your life depends on it. However, I'm not so certain any of us can throw the pc faster than the wind at terminal velocity can play the bridal out behind the jumper and make loops for the pc to knot with.

What type of jumps are you using this on? SliderDown, SliderUp, WS, Skydives?

Wingsuit BASE jumps

If you mean what I think you mean, I think this is a very bad idea. Personally I would not want anything balled up under a flap, at least nothing that has my only pilot chute attached to it.

Kerkko
BASE1184

I agree with that.
There's no way you can throw your PC faster than a 150-200 km/h relative wind. Even with the best throw, your PC will never go farther than your hand.

84n4n4 :
That's the only problem I can think of about this method.

Personnally, I use a 50/50 method : half the bridle inside the PC, half at the bottom. I think this way I thow enough bridle out to avoid burble problems, but not enough to creat a knot.
(If someone has an opinion about this, I'd like to hear it and/or have a link to a discussion about it).

Olivier

Putting the s-folds under the flap is just to avoid exposig them to the wind, the idea here is to keep part of the bridle from flying off before the pilot chute inflates, which could cause a knott. Besides the force needed to unfold the packed bridle is lower to that required to pop the pins, so a full bridle extension is granted before canopy extraction. It's pretty clear If you watch the video

What is the advantage of putting them under the flap, rather than at the bottom of the BOC?

I've been planing to ask here if anybody have been using this method for a while and had any feedback on it. This is good information. Thanks for that.

Has anybody else being using this method and did you have any problems with it?

Also is anyone using it slider down?

yes I understand why you are putting the bunched up bridle under the flap. I just think it is a very bad idea. It just smells like a container-lock waiting to happen. I mean it works great, until it doesn't. An to be honest the container on the video looks very loose in the bottom (compared to my rig, for example). Personally, my logic tells me that thing has a much greater chance of a fatal malfunction than your chance of ever getting a knot in your bridle. But we all choose our risks!

If I were to try to lower risk of knot-in-bridle/pc, I would not choose your method. It may work great for you, but for me it only creates more possible issues.

Kerkko
BASE1184

As you said if you put it in the BOC, there's a chance that all of it goes out when you pull. I actually tried it myself several times and happened to me according to my back cam video. No knott happened though but it's not nice watching the whole bridle dancing around before pilot chute inflation. Of course there is a right and a wrong way to do it but, at least to me,it wasn't as easy to do as Matt does perfectly in his video, and to be honest I wasn't confident that the bridle s-folds kept its original shape when pushing it to the bottom of the BOC. I think this new method is basically the same but it's easier to perform. Of course some cons might show up that's why I share the idea which is in beta phase.

Yes. I know some folks who've used it slider down for more than a thousand (between them) slider down jumps without major issues. The bridle popping out early as a big wad appears to be the only real problem that's cropped up.

Tom, how do you teach your students to pack their pcs?

I teach the traditional method, with the bridle inside the PC.

I have had several students ask about the "bridle in the BOC" method, and discuss it fairly often (it comes up in maybe every other course). I have had students leave here using that method, after learning and considering the trade offs for each method.

With good pitch technique I honestly don't see the advantage going to either method, especially at slider down (low) airspeeds.

thanks for the quick response tom!
i pack the bridle inside of the pc,
just wondering what if any drawbacks there are to this method vs the outside of the pc method.
this wekend i tried to pack it by wrapping the bridle back and forth around the outside of the pc in my skyrig for a few jumps.(didnt care for it) in my opionion the bridle stays where you put it better on the inside of the pc. i could imagine what the bridle would look like after a 2+ hour climb inside of your boc

If your boc is in good condition, a 2 hour hike shouldn't do anything and you can repack it at most exits.

I agree with Kege, I think this has this http://www.blincmagazine.com/...ist#Emanuele_Amadori written all over it.

Apart from whether or not it is stored under the flap, and also whether or not it is a rubber band, elastic band, velcro band, or anything else holding your bridle wadded up... (assuming someone has already thought like me that a rubber or elastic or something else may reduce the tension in a similar system)

You're still hoping the PC inflates, then drags it out of its S-folds... not throwing it to bridle stretch and letting it inflate at the end of the bridle. At least the bridle in the BOC method lets the bridle slide freely through the toss. What happens when this short bridled PC gets stuck in the burble and doesn't pull out those s-folds? Then you just have a tiny bridle in tow... and I'd hate to die with everyone knowing how small my bridle was. But seriously, I don't advocate hindering the bridle any more than necessary. It was made 7-12 feet long for a reason... snatch force. What if the staging of this creates a lower snatch force? Then you might have a hesitation. I can't always afford those... or not much.

I like where this guy's head is at, but it would seem there are better ways to accomplish what you want. I have seen a small 2x5 in inner boc before as well that s-folded bridle goes into first, then the pc in the outer full-size boc. It's a better method IMO if you have to stray from the usual...

I totally agree with both Kerkko's posts

IMHO, bridle has to be placed inside the BOC properly, no matter if inside the PC or at the end of it, just do it in the right way.

Please, do not put anything under any flap, or under any part of your rig that is not designed and enginered to stow anything.

You have to consider you are altering the sequence of actions and reactions that lead to a proper opening, adding forces and resistances in a place where they are not supposed to be

BFL-122 was a great man, a naturally talented, scrupulous, earnest skydiver and basejumper... but a damn shrivel-flap under a side-flap took him away (pay attention to Tracy's statement)

Stay safe, have fun!

Thank you all for your opinions, it's probably not such a good idea after all, but I keep thinking that a possible bridle-PC knot and/or major hesitations is one of the big base problems yet to be solved. You can deal with offheadings, line twists, line overs and even tension knots with proper training and education, but if you're ever awarded a knot on your PC, which can even happen with the best pitch technique, you're done, and the problem is massively bigger in the wingsuit environment. I like to think that the solution is there waiting for someone to find it

I mainly address this to Tom, as resident expert but post to you as this is your thread. Initially I understood from reading your post and without examining the photos that you proposed to attach the bridle in staged loops together, length wise and not wrap a Velcro around the bridle. As others have already replied, with far greater knowledge than I, " not a good idea." however if the Velcro was placed on the opposing faces of the bridle, so as to provide convenient marking folds and then hold it together neatly, maybe this would provide a more substantial way of folding the bridle and avoiding entanglement inside the BOC or PC? Already tried no doubt and some reason as to why not, Tom?