Basejumper.com - archive

Copied from email:

After receiving the email this morning, it sparked a conversation on the hike with an employee of a well known container manufacturer. It sounds like from their experience and what may have happened with the STRONGLITE, ALL jumpers with integrated risers, regardless of the manufacturer should check their MLW after each jump.

It's a fairly good argument for L-Bar connection of the risers as it places the load on the back side of the stack and eliminates the "peal" factor. There are also heavier threads them 5 cord. I've used a 500 at times as opposed to 375 or what ever 5 cord is. Too lazy to go and pull a spool for the designation. Point is that we could build things stronger through design or material.

Lee

What's the worst case scenario with this?

Ah well, guess they'll have to take back their "no warranty" policy. While the Stronglite is light, I don't see it putting up with nearly as much normal wear and tear that most other rigs are capable of. After just ~25 jumps mine is already starting to show wear on the leg straps and the BOC.

I could not agree more, from what I see this wasn't an issue with how this particular container is built, everyone else does them the same way. It's an issue with all integrated risers IMO.

But L-bars are "too heavy" *shrug*

if the whole stitch pattern would blow you could suddenly lean back way further than youre used to under canopy... :-)


at least for the rigs i do aerials with i really prefer lbars.

L-Bar 2.75 oz or 78 g

Just weighed one.

Solid link 2.0 oz or 58 g

There's another solid link. It's about the same weight but a slightly different forging, rounder, it's rated for 5000 lb where as the L-Bars and Solid links are 3000 lb. So if you're willing to sew it in it's the way to go. There is also a light version of the drag chute link that is rated for 6000 lb and would also make the risers replaceable. It is only mildly heavier the a normal L-Bar.

We're pretty brutal on our gear. Maybe it's worth 1/4 of a pound to... not die?

We don't even have a three ring there to back up the stitching. Think about it. in a skydiving harness you have the slot of the Three ring surrounding the stack of webbing above the confluence. Even if it starts to tear the slot is not going to want to slide bellow the confluence and helps to keep the webbing from spreading offering some protection to the bottom half of the stitch pattern. You don't have that. A lot of pilot rigs use a solid link to move the load to the bottom. There's a reason for this shit. Call them up and ask them what happened when they tried to drop the harness with out it.

Lee

Agreed. Sorry, sarcasm doesn't work on the internet I guess. I think L bars are absolutely the way to go for integrated risers, it is easy to replace risers if they are damaged/have to be cut and they allow you to place the attachment point behind the back diagonal like you're talking about. Back in the day before the proper bottom rings with slots, this was apparently also an issue. Jerry B made something work with a solid link but it was all solved by the slotted bottom ring.

It seems like most people going to integrated risers are doing it to save weight, not for security. And I honestly feel like an integrated riser such as this is more likely to be ripped off than a 3 ring release failing.

All this being said, I own rigs with integrated risers, and continue to build them for people, because that's what they want. They don't want L-bars. Like you said, *I* think its worth the 1/4 pound.... As soon as you throw a water bottle into your stashbag you've completely negated your weight savings, several times over.

Silly.

I don't really understand why an L-bar would be stronger or better than a continuous piece of webbing. The L-bar still needs to be attached to the harness, using webbing and stitching. Isn't the L-bar just another potential link in the chain that could fail? Wouldn't it still transfer opening force onto the same point on the harness? Or is it that L-bars are sewn on in a different configuration on the harness?

In my mind its not about weight, but about simplicity and removing potential failure points. Maybe I'm missing something?

do you have a rig with continous risers at hand so you can have a look at it?

imagine following scenario: you are on your back when canopy reaches line stretch.
-> with lbars there is not a lot more load beeing put on the stitching than if you were belly down. the continuous piece of webbing that comes up from your legs as MLW goes through the lbar (or 3 ring) and continues over your shoulders down your back while the piece of webbing that makes the loop for the lbar is under this continous piece. so the stitching itself does get a "shearing force", that distributes the load quite nice over all the stitches that make up the joint.
-> with continous harness your leg straps become the MLW and then the risers, while it is sandwiched together in this joint with the back diagonal. if you now load the risers in this direction you have a "peeling" force on this joint, so the whole load is put on the top row of stitches of this joint.

being on your back is a extreme scenario (although it could be even worse like rolling onto one side so all the load is put on a single joint first), this kind of peeling force will always there in all other scenarios aswell (although not that strong), since the center of gravity is on the backside of the mlw.
so as soon as the opening stood you up you are loading this joint with a mixture of shearing and peeling force (to which parts depends on the angle).

to be noted, above describes how most integrated riser harnesses are made, im sure there are different contraptions out there.
generally this continous harness thing works pretty good, its also the way most skydive rigs are made, look at the reserve riser assembly...

But on a sky rig the reserve risers pass through the slot on the 3 ring which distributes the load in the same way that an L bar would.

It will be interesting to see the exact instructions for their mod when it comes out. It sounds like a reasonable solution but it's efficacy may depend on the exact geometry. Were the two junctions are sewn, how far back on the diagonal and how high on the riser group and the location of the original junction on the shoulder. With the right geometry I think all three junction of that triangle could be made quite strong.

It makes me wonder how strong is strong enough? What should we really be using as a standard? I mean we've been testing skydiving gear for a long time but with all the variation in our deployment systems there is the potential for the load curve on opening to be very different. Has any one done any real load cell testing on base openings? I mean the technology is there now. It makes my wonder how the graphs would compare.

But in the end the truth is that we have the ability to exceed the limits on any design. Just hum that slider down canopy low enough and I think you could break just about any thing. Even slider up free packing isn't exactly the most positive form of staging. The only thing that really surprises me is that we haven't seen more problems before now.

Maybe at some point we should sit down and start trying to put some real numbers to some of these loads. This industry is getting bigger. Maybe it's time for a testing standard?

Lee

I remember flipping thru Parachutist in the early 2000s and seeing a lot of incidents where the reserve blew up on deployment "operating outside their limits". Invariably the position of Precision at the time. I know people that have had head down deployments on their reserve and lived. Likely because that reserve had higher limits.

I like the idea of the human being the weak link in gear. Wasn't BASE gear originally designed with that in mind?

To be honest I think most base gear was just built like sky gear and that was that.

Referring to harness/canopy construction etc.

 
Service Bulletin update

Product Modification Procedure


I totally agree that the human body should be the weak link. This is why I think that basing the minimal requirements on climbing gear standards is a good practice.

IMHO the worst case scenario is a deployement where one side only takes all the load, in a random direction.

Hence the minimal strength I use as reference is 22kN for each pair of risers - the design having to resist that load in any direction.

Ideally for a standard harness the cheststrap should have the same strength, but in real life if you only do some rappels on dynamic ropes, half of that resistance is enough - in this case it's more up to the manufacturer to communicate clearly on the limitation of the product.

And again the design should be taking into account various load direction and not only the perfect belly to earth stable deployement.

These strength are really not hard to obtain, and all the base rigs are strong enough, but not in all possible configurations. The problem is inherent to the skydiving gear assembly techniques that are really outdated nowadays.

So I'll admit, here I was thinking my rig was totally overbuilt and failure-proof so long as it wasn't damaged, and now this happens.
Obviously all our gear has its limits. I would have thought that a canopy would rip under extreme loads, lines or attachment points could break or I might be injured myself as the result of a hard opening but until now I thought that the container at least would hold together.

Anyone else surprised by this or was I just naive?

For me it wasn't clear what thread sizes are to be used so I mailed them.

"It's coats tex-90 for the box pattern and coats tex-70 for the bartack - or equivalent." (So F and E thread respectively)

(I was asked by a moderator to copy this message from the incidents forum, to this thread. I have edited it because it is no longer a reply to a message in that forum).

The Service Bulletin and this message describe the facts of the incident as it was initially reported to us by the jumper, and the subsequent information that was gained after a more careful review and re-testing of this integrated riser design.

What we know right now is that the circumstances of this incident included a very steep >25sec track in a fast tracking suit with no flare, pull and deployment from a head low position, and then total line-dump (result of malfunctioning tail pocket) on a 300sqft (PIA) canopy with 5 vents and a large hole mesh slider, loaded asymmetrically by a jumper with an exit weight of over 200lbs with equipment: these factors generated forces that few situations are capable of producing and that most jumpers would make normal efforts to avoid. We are thankful that the jumper was not seriously injured.

We have no interest in keeping these things secret. No one benefits when a manufacturer sweeps an issue under the rug and then quietly implements a safety mod. Considering that we have not yet been able to inspect the harness in question and considering the extreme nature of the incident, perhaps we are overreacting by reporting on this at such length, and in such detail, and replacing all affected harnesses. But we would much rather overreact than under-react. The potential is not limited to this particular harness if one examines other current designs that can be pulled apart at the same load in the same fashion.

Integrated riser MLW junctions have been damaged in the past. However, because the damage was not widely reported and instead quietly modified, those of us with similar configurations were not made aware of it. There has been the potential, as pointed out by experienced riggers on this forum, but other actual incidents have not been well reported. We now better understand how the angles and forces needed to damage this design are specific and unusual, but possible.

This post and the attached document contain all of the relevant information that we have at this time. After our recent (8th of August) re-testing of our design and the designs of other manufacturers, and after receiving further information about how this jumper managed to exert such forces on his equipment, I think it is very important to encourage open discussion about equipment use. No equipment is indestructible, and BASE gear malfunctions more often than is reported and more often than most jumpers want to believe. We can only improve safety if issues are publicly reported and solutions are shared.

I agree that the human body should be the limiting factor in BASE equipment design, but we as jumpers all need to realize that it is possible to use our equipment improperly. We all have to make our best efforts to avoid situations and gear configurations that put ourselves and our gear at increased risk. There are ways to moderate opening forces and educating ourselves of the best practices for this is critical in terminal BASE jumping situations. At the same time, we as manufacturers have a responsibility to create gear that will sustain almost every imaginable situation – we realize this and believe that other manufacturers do as well. This incident will help us to improve both gear and knowledge in the sport.

As Squirrel has grown, we have inadvertently stepped on a few toes in the industry and the community. We have our detractors and we understand that this may be inevitable. While our primary concern is caring for and supporting our own customers who in turn support us, we also would like to maintain an open dialogue with everyone, customers or not. We encourage anyone with questions or concerns to contact us at any time for an exchange of information. While we normally do not have time to monitor forums, we will also endeavor to respond here where possible as the BASE forum can serve the community in a positive manner in situations like this. Thank you for the constructive forum thread.

-Matt

Not naive, just a little behind the information curve.

Military gear was always overbuilt and essentially failure-proof but gear manufacturers since civilian parachuting first took off have been cutting into the overbuild and failure-proof margin in their quest to make lighter (and sometimes simpler) gear.

Nothing wrong with that, but sometimes they go too far or they make a mistake in redesign and/or new construction techniques or in some other way alter the puzzle to the point that Murphy's cousin Unintended Consequences jumps into the equation.

I know of two very pronounced examples:

The first was, IIRC Green County Systems rigs, where the reserve risers (also integral to the harness and not connected to it via hardware) peeled during some reserve deployments, killing and/or injuring some people before they figured it out and fixed it. The culprit IIRC was improper stitching at the stress point Lee was talking about, or failure to do a wrap or something like that.

Second one was a Sandy Reid rig, a Talon, where they narrowed the reserve container to accommodate the narrower shoulders of female jumpers. It was all good until one girl had a total and when she pulled the reserve, nothing happened. She literally clawed open the reserve container and lived.

Good thing, too; they duplicated the failure on the table -- turns out by changing the flap geometry, it created an interlock that the pilot chute didn't have the power to pierce. They fixed that one without further adventures or any fatalities.

So now we come to Squirrel and the current state of the industry and, basically, we have re-designed much of the overbuild and related redundancy out of the systems... it's almost as if, just like we did by jumping lower and lower, we have designed our gear margins down to almost zero and the least little problem can in fact have catastrophic consequences.

This is NOT to bag on Squirrel per se or refer specifically to this incident, but to look at the big picture in terms of process.

How much lighter does the gear need to be? Why re-design and/or re-engineer the proven-for-decades-with-millions-of-jumps certainty of hardware connectors between main risers and harness in order to save a few ounces of gear weight and a few dollars worth of hardware? What is the point?

Especially when so many BASE jumpers are now jumping wingsuits that weigh as much as their rigs. You know, having risers connected to the harness by hardware instead of thread weighs about as much as half a beer, so just drink one less beer the night before the hike and you're good to go.


44

Where they build the container?
Asia?
Is relevant?

It's evolution, progress, improvement. Whatever you want to call it. It's whatever people want and the market dictates the sale and production.

Funny, every rig I've ever jumped has had sewn in, integrated risers. In skydiving they're called reserve risers. The gear is almost never the issue, it is the misuse of gear that causes problems.

Just because something is proven, doesn't mean it cannot be improved upon.

On skydiving gear the reserve risers pass through the slot on the 3 ring which protects them from this kind of damage.

On base gear they do not, there is a huge difference.

no, this does not protect them from damage. they pass through the slot of the ring but this does not matter in this case because the force is not coming from the ring (as if it would be with the main, or on a base rig with 3 ring or lbars), but from the reserve riser.

take your skydive rig and do exactly what i described above, pull the reserve risers away from the rig as if the jumper would be lying on his back. the harness ring will just flip down, and you will pull on the top row of stitching of the joint. the ring does not help the joint.

take care!
ciao!
hirschi

Ozone Paragliding in Vietnam.

http://squirrel.ws/philosophy

blitzkrieg 1
straw man 0

try again, son.


44

I just sewed the update on a Squirrel Stronglite harness/container. The instructions were easy to understand and it took me less than an hour.

I was NOT IMPRESSED with the original shoulder joint construction. It is one of the few harnesses made without a webbing or metal confluence wrap. The only production harness that is close is National's pilot emergency chute series. Even National includes a Type 4 webbing confluence wrap. Nationals are only TSOed under C23C, low speed category. If you want my opinion of National's PEPs, read what Manley Butler published back around 1990.

If I worked for Squirrel, I would switch confluence wrap construction from that flimsy fabric (200 denier? rip-stop, para-pack) to the Type 4 webbing (3,000 pound tensile strength) or Type 12 webbing (1200 pounds tensile strength) used by all the other harness manufacturers.

Secondly, I would make the rear risers twice as long and sew the riser "tail" onto the diagonal back strap with 5-cord. Sewing the rear risers (similar to the update) is a better way to prevent risers peeling off the harness when you deploy on your back.

Thanks for this Robin.

And NOT to bag on Squirrel - as this is apparently an issue with all rigs with integrated risers and so might have easily have occurred with a rig from another manufacturer - but I think that the trend in lightweight gear has gotten to this point is absolutely insane.

I thought the general story of the BFL was that it started with gear issues, then once the gear improved it has since been a story of human error.
Now what - it's 2014 and we're starting to see gear-related fatalities again? As far as I know there's been one fatality directly related to lightweight gear and this was almost a second. What's next, collapsible pilot chutes so you can get a better swoop from your canopy?

What type of stitch pattern did they use for the confluence wrap? 3 point? 4 point? Do they have a horizontal row across the top?
Edit: I feel the horizontal row should be standard to protect the 4 point stitch.

I'm trying to envision this. Usually the riser continues down to become the lift web. Or are you suggesting to double the rear riser all the way back down from the top of the riser to the confluence and then continue on with the Squirrel modification? That would definitely look nice and clean.

According to Squirrel, this is an issue with other manufacturers.

Be careful of what you read online. I don't know of any other major manufacturer that is skimping on harness construction or material to save weight. Which also explains why other manufacturers haven't had a harness detonate on opening.

Paragliding is not the same as skydiving. All other major manufacturers have come from a skydiving background so are not repeating the problems that occurred in older skydiving systems.

Customers shouldn't be test pilots for unproven designs. All the marketing and academic theory in the world is of little value without adequate time in the real world.

4 point with a boxed top.

He is saying the rear riser would fold over, go back down the rear of the riser, and the tail would exit over the shoulder into the back diagonal, and be used as the support strap, instead of a completely different piece of webbing. A little cleaner looking.

For what its worth, jerry baumchen did quite a bit of testing back in the day, and found no significant difference in strength in peel failure loads with or without a type 4 confluence wrap.

I don´t know the details of the detonated Squirrel harness and I do not have the rigging knowledge to evaluate the construction of the Stronglite compared to other harnesses on the same market segment but wasn´t there an incident reported some time ago where the chest strap was torn off from a competing manufacturers harness on a very similar incident (steep track, big jumper, lot of speed)? Not saying this means anything on the construction of the Stronglite versus others but just to point out that as we are moving towards lighter gear and shaving off grams here and there, in general we are exposing ourselves to added risk by jumping gear which is built to take less abuse.

just want to reiterate that part. if this is you, or could be potentially, educate yourself on your gear and know the potential risks.

regardless of manufacturer, gear as it is today can fail if used outside of its design specifications. it shouldn't, but it can. period.

 
1. Why we designed it this way, and why we were wrong

When we originally developed the StrongLite we wanted to make something very different. We started with the idea that the entire harness would be constructed from a type of webbing that is manufactured specifically for climbing harnesses. We spent some time at the load test facility with a climbing manufacturer, sewing and testing prototypes. They worked well, were very strong, and were quite different. During the testing of this lighter version we contemplated adding in the inlay strap that is now the modification outlined in the recent PMP, but the inlay was scrapped when we went back to Ty-8 materials and instead modeled the harness on the status quo, because after thinking about this lighter webbing for a while longer and testing the harness and thinking about how BASE jumpers tend to treat their equipment we decided that the durability concerns with lighter webbing were too great.

Back to the drawing board – with a Ty-8 continuous design. We still wanted to eliminate the heavy steel leg strap buckles, and settled on our current design which incorporates the light buckles without entirely relying on them and in terms of the riser-legloop-lower-confluence load path, is as strong as anything else on the market. We spent a lot of time thinking about how the leg loops and risers would be constructed, but not enough time focusing on the MLW wrap. The load testing that we performed on the Ty-8 version at the laboratory was very encouraging and we focused too much on proving how strong the harness was in normal configurations instead of imagining how a sustained (we tested momentary, which was not enough) load in the worst-case direction would affect the harness.

Knowing that our own testing could be viewed with suspicion, we also sent the finished harness to Para-Test Switzerland, for an EN certificate which is attached here. The EN testing is thorough but in hindsight not exhaustive enough. Please note that all tests in this report are with a 175kg (385lb) load and do include an inverted single riser pull which comes closest to approximating the angle that probably damaged the harness we are discussing now. It was our opinion that if it could sustain our tests and the EN tests at 175kg (385lbs) then it was acceptable, at least. Independently confirming the strength of the harness was important to us but we should have spent more time loading it creatively, ourselves. We should have paid more attention to the MLW wrap, not focusing enough on this section of the harness led us to what came next.


2. What our reaction was when it happened

When we received news of the incident, we talked to the jumper on the phone immediately after it happened, and began writing the first SB that was released hours after the incident. It asked jumpers to inspect their gear and report back to us, and to stop use immediately (No other Stronglites have been reported to show any sign of damage or wear). We sent a FedEx label on the 7th to get the harness back to the USA but it was only picked up today, the 12th (as of today, August 12, we still do not have the harness). The afternoon of the incident, Mike and I packed up the car and made the 7hr drive to the closest load testing facility. We spent the following day in the lab testing our production harness, versions of it, and other harnesses.

3. What we did to re-test

We repeated the inverted single riser pull that the EN tested. We tested this with the production version and other versions, and two different harnesses that we did not build. Video of the testing of our harnesses is here: https://vimeo.com/103272992 (password: load) We will not release video of the other harnesses that we tested – you can ask us to but our answer will remain no. Our harness is the problem here, not others.

The first test shows a production harness, then a version with double Ty-12 wrap, then production with a partial reinforcement, then finally production with the Inlay Modification described in the PMP we released on Saturday the 9th.

What we found was that while our harness admittedly fared worse due to our wrap material, all harnesses tested suffered the same type of damage at similar loads. Regardless of thread strength or wrap type, when the risers are pulled at such an acute peeling angle, there is only thread to take the load. Look at your integrated riser design – if you pull the risers straight down to your hips then the first thing that takes load is thread. The wrap obviously provides protection here and a weak wrap may tear or roll or both, but even the strongest wraps used currently “rolled” down the MLW as the diagonal peeled away. See attached photo.

One person has said that by testing other harnesses or mentioning that we did test them, we are “blame-shifting”. We sincerely apologize if this is the impression that anyone got from the SB or my comment above. Obviously, we have discovered a problem with our product – that has been evident from the beginning and we never denied it for one second. What we were quite surprised to learn is that there is also obviously this potential in other products out there, and we thought it was an important point to bring up.

As the news circulated, we heard back from other jumpers that this issue had already been reported to one other manufacturer, who did not release an SB or tell anyone at all. Secondly, the jumper who damaged our StrongLite wrote to us to say that his other harness, from another manufacturer, also showed signs of wear in this area. Take what you want from that, but I’m not sure it makes sense to use it as ammunition to fire back at us.

A note on the video, for our friend Matt Frohlich in particular: We shot this for internal use and our records only, it is not fancy or comprehensive. It was never intended to be released and I had no plans to publish it until it was claimed that we never actually tested anything, and probably just made all of this up. It is not edited in any way, it is just individual clips put together. When you see the machine back off and reverse direction, that means it has reached the end of the machine’s “throw” and the harness and chain need to be reset at a shorter chain distance to achieve more range and pull. It is not the operator intentionally backing off the load.

4. What we did to fix it

The inlay piece is a very simple 14cm (5.5”) length of Ty-8 added to reinforce the top of the 4-point at the MLW. It protects the top of the 4-point from a peeling load. Its strength approximates that of Ty-8 from any pull direction and is more than adequate to sustain the load while the jumper is rotated back to a normal upright position and the riser-lower-confluence-leg-loop path is then loaded.

Prior to implementing this fix, we discussed it at length with some of the most experienced riggers in the USA. Other ideas were talked about and the merits of a slightly weaker “bridge” of varying lengths and fastening methods were discussed. L-bars, steel rings to transfer load, etc, were all considered. We settled on the Ty-8 inlay because it meets the strength of the rest of the system, and if loaded will protect the 4-point while the jumper rotates back to a more parallel configuration.

We are replacing all StrongLites with an improved design that lengthens the diagonal, increases the wrap rigidity, and most importantly includes the inlay piece which prevents the 4-point from taking a peeling load in the first place. Every affected customer will have their replacement in the coming weeks. Mike is currently at our factory testing a series of samples to ensure that this improvement does what we want it to. This is an ongoing process and we are being as thorough and efficient as we can while also trying to keep not only our customers but also the BASE community informed. I’m sorry it took me so long to get this written but as you can imagine we have been rather busy.


5. What is happening now

Part of the conversations I had with another BASE gear manufacturer about this situation covered the fact that there is currently a negative divergence between the development of BASE jumping techniques and the type of gear. Jumpers are pushing the limits of the equipment past what was considered possible 10 years ago, and at the same time the market is demanding lighter and lower-profile gear. Head down BASE freeflying, high-performance tracking, canopies with more and more venting, all combined with jumpers pushing these limits of the sport with less and less experience. Publishing a more thorough examination of what exactly led to our harness being damaged might be seen as “blame-shifting” so I will not do it, but seriously, please, fucking think about it. There are two bottom lines: Most importantly, our gear had a weak point. Secondly, it was exploited in an extra-ordinary way.

This has, to be frank, been a brutal lesson for us at Squirrel and I cannot describe in words how grateful I am that the jumper was not badly hurt. I also cannot stress enough how seriously we take safety. I jump our gear constantly, my best friends are out there jumping our gear every day – so, for the most selfish and the most selfless reasons, we want it to be as safe as possible and a desire to improve safety in BASE is a large part of what drove us to start the company in the first place. We are a new company, and we are acutely aware of this. That is what led us to spend so much time load testing prior to release, paying for EN tests, having every single piece of load-bearing equipment that we ship inspected by riggers prior to shipping, etc. We take full responsibility for all of this and we will further deepen our commitment to safety and to imagining these worst case scenarios in order to better prepare equipment for them.

Sincere thanks to those who have been a part of the conversation behind the scenes, and to all of our customers.

-Matt

http://www.squirrel.ws

(edited to add attached photo - the EN test report pdf exceeds the allowable limit for attachments here, I'll get it put up at a link ASAP).

I honestly can't conceive of any one being critical of how you have handled this incident. And frankly I don't think there is much to criticize in your original design process. Frankly you've done more testing then most of us. For a long time it was just a monkey see monkey do copying process of existing skydiving harness designs and that was always considered good enough. It's not different enough from existing designs to raise any eyebrows.

Question, because I'm still confused about some thing. I've never seen one of your rigs up close. How the hell do your leg straps adjust. Is it a slip harness like a national? Does the lateral slide through the MLW or does the MLW slide through the lateral? Or is it fixed and the type 8 just goes slack leaving the climbing webbing and buckle to bear all the load on opening. I've looked at the pictures and I just don't understand it.

Lee

Continuous loop of type 8 that goes slack if you tighten down the webbing passing through the hardware.

Hey Squirrels,

Thanks for the full and honest report.

Re: your second photograph/attachment. I have seen similar popped stitches on skydiving harnesses that were deployed waaaaay over-load, waaaaay over-speed and unstable.
A metal confluence wrap helps, but I believe that your inlay is a better long-term solution.

" ... Question, because I'm still confused about some thing. I've never seen one of your rigs up close. How the hell do your leg straps adjust. Is it a slip harness like a national? Does the lateral slide through the MLW or does the MLW slide through the lateral? Or is it fixed and the type 8 just goes slack leaving the climbing webbing and buckle to bear all the load on opening. I've looked at the pictures and I just don't understand it.

Lee"

.............................................................................

Squirrel Stronglite hip joint is sewn the same way as most "straight" skydiving harnesses. The upper leg straps (2 layers of Type 8 webbing) cross the MLW (2 layers of Type 8 webbing) and are sewn together with 5 cord. The (double-layer) MLW continues down to become the lower leg-straps, then the lower leg-straps wrap up through the hip joint ... all one big piece. The Type 8 leg-straps are not adjustable, nor is the MLW length adjustable.
The lateral (horizontal) back-strap is not adjustable.
It is a "one size fits one person" harness.

All the adjustment is in an additional layer of (3/4 inch wide) webbing and an aluminum buckle. If the narrow, adjustable strap fails, you still have 2 layers of Type 8 to support your weight.

"... For what its worth, jerry baumchen did quite a bit of testing back in the day, and found no significant difference in strength in peel failure loads with or without a type 4 confluence wrap."

.................................................................................

Probably not much difference in peel strength without without a webbing confluence wrap.
However the presence and routing of a metal confluence wrap can make a huge difference.
Do you remember back around 2000, Eclipse issued a Service Bulletin about re-sewing shoulder joints. It seems that some harnesses snuck out of their factory with the diagonal back-straps routed OUTSIDE the slot in the RW-1 3-Ring.
Some Southern California riggers (including me, but Al Frisby was the one who really raised the stink) refused to repack those Eclipses. We sent some samples to a big, Florida manufacturer, who pull-tested them and concluded that peel strength was HALF with the diagonal back-strap OUTSIDE the metal confluence wrap.

Even with a metal confluence wrap, an over-weight, over-speed, unstable opening can still break a few stitches across the top of the WMW pattern.

Squirrel's inlay looks like the best solution to keeping silly BASE jumpers alive when they deploy over-speed, over-weight and unstable.

"... Or are you suggesting to double the rear riser all the way back down from the top of the riser to the confluence and then continue on with the Squirrel modification? That would definitely look nice and clean.
..........................................................................

Sort of ...

I would start the usual way ... by routing the MLW up through the shoulder joint ... then continue it all the way up to become the rear riser.
BUT, I would cut it (the riser portion) twice too long and continue it all back down the back side of the rear riser. Just before the shoulder joint, I would bend it back and sew (5 cord MWM) it to the diagonal back-strap. That way you complete the third side of the triangle/tripod.
Now, if you deploy on your back, you need to tear a 4,000 pound tensile strength length of Type 8 webbing before your rear risers separate from the diagonal back-straps.

I'm going to toss out some thoughts on potential contributing factors to this kind of load and the angle that the diagonal might be loaded at. I'm not suggesting that any of these were necessarily the case in this incident. I've just been wondering what might control the angle and load. Brain storming, straight out of my ass.

Where does the CG wind up hanging relative to the upper junction? I think there are some dimensions of the harness that might dictate how far you naturally tend to recline and the angle and load on the diagonal.

Once upon a time the laterals on a rig were very short. The hip junction was very much on the side of the body. This has a number of advantages. It's actually a more natural location, more inline with the actual point of rotation of the hip, which is farther back then you would think. It also naturally holds the rig in against your back. The down side includes the fact that the yoke tends to cut into your shoulders. It's hard to reach across to the opposite riser under canopy. You are much more vertical in the harness under canopy which tends to cut into your groin cutting off blood flow. Note that a lot of harnesses were TSO'd during this period.

Now it has become popular to build rigs with longer laterals and the MLW in front of the body. This is much more comfortable under canopy. The yoke is not cutting into your shoulders as you reach forward. It makes your legs want to come up into almost a sitting position. The load is on the back of your thigh rather then in your groin. The down side is that the hip junction is now well in front of the point of rotation of the hip. The junction rides up as you lift your legs. This can cause the rig to lift vertically off you shoulders, loosen when you sit. With enough stagger and flexibility in the harness the rig can hinge off you back, ala mirage. But what it also does is put the CG noticeable more behind the MLW making you want to recline more. You don't see this as much with base rigs but some skydiving rigs are pretty bad.

If the Lateral is low, ie no stager, continuous to the leg stap, then the body could potentially rock more backwards away from the MLW. A lot of this depends on the location of the upper junction. Take an extreme example. Say the junction was low, as in mid way down the chest. The body could tilt backward till it was almost reclining. Now imagine a more normal position but with a higher lateral with some stagger. The lateral now holds the main lift web back closer to the body. That support higher on your spine keeps the MLW closer to the CG It doesn't let the body fall backwards from the front of the yoke as much. Note that these are subtle changes but we are close to the CG so a small difference causes a larger change in the angle you hang. Now combine that with a front side harness and if the legs rise and the MLW loosens then now the body can recline even farther as the slack in the MLW pulls way from the body in a triangle.

Where is the junction. The lower down, the longer the yoke, the more you will tend to recline. Racers, racers tend to have longer yokes. The canopy is noticeable more in front of you, you are more reclined in a racer. Come to think of it, I've seen popped stitches on a racer. But then again it was a beat up old POS jumped by an old fat fuck. On the other hand a very high junction wouldn't exactly do you any favors on the angle that the webbing might be pulled at. The lowest actual force might be a medium to low junction but with a short lateral that put the CG almost between the MLW and a high enough lateral that it would cradle your back and not let you fall backwards from the MLW, keeps you between it.

This is all pretty subtle. It all happens in fairly close proximity to the CG, so small changes count. I particularly wonder about the location of the MLW. A number of manufactures have made changes like this but I think they were all after their heavy TSO testing. I don't think it's even a minor change. It's just a slight shift in measurements of an existing approved harness. I can't imagine that they did any further heavy drop test. I wonder how it would fair. It's not like it gets tested hard in the field all the time. Most opening are mains. Most reserve rides are sub terminal. So we're potentially copying something which has a long operation history of not being used, or at least not used hard. Where as our rigs get pounded with high peak force opening on ever jump. Kind of scary.

Another thought. Opening are quite dynamic. The force starts out at a set point over your shoulder. Depending on the body angle you have the potential to build up a lot of rotational momentum when opening head low or in a track. But the returning force is a product ho the location of the junction relative to the CG. So the pull is over your shoulder. Then you rotate up right and the point shifts to the height of the junction as you pendulum underneath the canopy on opening. Depending on how long the yoke is and where the CG is you could wind up leaning way back pulling on the junction at a really bad angle. The returning force to stop your rotation could be a lot less if the junction were low. Argues for a higher junction.

Enough rambling. Let's hear some of your thoughts. What do you think the contributing factors are to the loading of the diagonal junction?

Lee

this has actually turned out to be a pretty awesome thread. i applaud Squirrel's efforts to investigate and fix the problem.

i also appreciate the conversation by the other experienced riggers and jumpers. it's a nice change of pace around here.

any plans on building a strongheavy?
someth a little more heavy duty with a three ring release built more for slider down.

As i can read a lot of speculation about this incident I'm gonna give my opinion and recall the event and how it happened.
So it was a jump in Norway on a good day and cross wind from right to left not sure of speed but somewhere in-between 10-15kn
Tracking jump in Tube3 with StrongLite Container and OSP 285 Canopy. Both container and canopy are new with total of 5 jumps 2 SD and 2 Terminal. This would be my 3 rd terminal jump and last two jumps were fine where openings were smooth.
The exit was fine and i started to dive down to pick up speed and i choose to take a left line as we were doing a 3 way so my goal was fly to the edge of the bowl and deploy. My track was stable and not one second of it did i feel i was getting unstable during the whole flight. I personally always pitch in a full track and never have i thought that my body position or the speed i was generating would cause my equipment to catastrophically fail as it has in this instance. I have around 25 terminal jumps from Brento and all have been done in Tube3 with my LD2 from Adrenaline and I can say i had much harder openings than where I thought my spine cracked from it. Upon closer inspection of the LD2 i have noticed some stitching on MLW junction have blown but it has stayed intact and maybe 5-10% damage was done. In the end all I can say is I never expected the equipment in this case StrongLite container to fail as it has. I always thought human body should break first before the harness. In the end i managed to walk away with minor injuries and a great experience and i really hope that manufacturers do a better job on our equipment so no one goes through what i have experienced. I will post a video as well.
Cheers

Yes. I believe the prototype is already under construction. I know I've asked about it and been told that it's on the way. Given the rate at which Squirrel is rolling out new gear, it could be ready very soon.

You're here and able to type without aid so maybe "catastrophically" is a poor choice in words.

$0.02

http://en.wikipedia.org/...Catastrophic_failure

sounds fair death is not necessarily required

I very glad to hear you weren't seriously injured or worse.

What are you doing about your openings? Sounds like your opening forces have been able to damage containers from two different manufacturers, in not very many jumps. Will you address your canopy/body position/packing? Openings should not be brutal, not for the sake of your equipment, but for sake of healthy spine.

+1

This is not certainly not the first time that a hard opening has caused equipment damage/failure. Obviously an extreme example, but we all know that a slider down taken to terminal has a strong possibility of gear failure. I'm not saying that this excuses manufactures of the responsibility to build gear that can handle normal to hard use, but merely to point out that the expectation for gear (especially ultra-light gear) to outlast the human body is unrealistic.
In this case, the user pulled in full track with a subterminal specific canopy and an ultra-light harness. This practice will certainly test the limits of any gear, and probably should be avoided whenever possible.

Regarding deployment style, in my experience, there is no reason to not at least present to the relative wind during your pitch. With a good track and a fast pull I've seen no flight angle loss during opening in this fashion. The alternative of pulling in a full track position seems only to provide slammer opening, stressing the body, stressing the gear, and increasing the likelihood of off-headings and line twists.

My main reason for posting is to give big props to Squirrel for facing this incident with integrity and 100% transparency. I have personally witnessed unacceptable quality control from other reputable manufacturers, and never before have I seen such a respectable response. You guys are really backing up you mission statement.

Sounds like user error to me. Let's see the damaged harness!

Exactly. Could you ride the Tour de France on a DH bike? Maybe..but why? Could you do a ladder drop on a 15lb road bike? Maybe...but why? BASE gear is specific enough these days to consider their application when configuring your system. Do you want road wheels on your mountain bike? Do you want 6 inches of travel on your road bike? Gear is safest when used for its intended application. When you use it outside of its intended application consider where that puts you in its performance range and how many times you want to jump there. If you want to regularly take your SD canopy terminal, then figure out how...don't just grit your teeth and get slammed every time.

He had ONE hard opening of 5 (count them) total on the gear. Regardless of if he contributed to the hard opening or not, it should not cause major damage to the gear. Hard openings happen (it's base jumping - hello!) it's not like he abused the harness.

Some people are being very quick to praise the Manufacturer and blame the user without knowing the facts.

The manufacturer seems to be choosing their language very carefully, perhaps leading people to certain perception.

They chose to say he was over 200lbs to make it sound like he was overloading the gear. This seems like a pretty average weight to me. 175lbs for the jumper, 8lbs for hiking clothes and boots and 17lbs for jumping gear would put you at 200lbs.

What weight is the jumper?

The container is sized for a canopy that is a PIA 300 size. The average recommended body weight for a jumper on this canopy is 202lbs. A conservative jumper would be 180 lbs and someone less conservative may be 225lbs or more. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that the harness should be designed for a jumper of at least 225lbs + 45lbs gear + a healthy tolerance. Why would the harness built for this canopy not be built to take this weight?

In fact it wasn't, it's supposed to be certified for 175Kg (385lbs)

Isn't the weight of the jumper also on the order form?

Muddying the waters with this kind of spin is just a cheap trick.

According to the manufacturer the harness is "engineered specifically for the needs of modern wingsuit BASE jumpers and trackers" He was using it for a tracking jump.

The OSP is not necessarily a slider down only canopy. It is optimised for up to 8 sec delays but is ok to take to terminal depending on the options you get. The model and size of canopy is on the container order form, if it's not safe it shouldn't have been made.

Your argument may be weak for the following reasons.

By your logic, the canopy choice is irrelevant because he was doing a modern track with a modern tracking container? So can I go do deep SD delays with a spectra UL canopy, as long as I use a modern SD container? Gear configuration is important.


It ignores his prior history of hard openings/container damage with other systems.

It suggests that the manufacturer needs to audit order forms prior to selling a container. If I order a Stronglite container for my 280 BlackJack (why?), is Mike responsible for making sure I roll the nose, direct control, box man, whatever? Or can he assume that I choose to jump that canopy because I can consistently manage my openings?

It ignores the very real fact that canopy size is much less relevant then canopy type (when properly loaded). A 300ft Seven opens nice and soft. A 280 black jack opens nice too (if its managed properly).

My point was not that the jumper must open perfectly or suffer a gear failure. My point IS that a jumper getting slammed on a regular basis should focus on getting them self closer to the middle of the bell curve (in terms of opening force). Getting there may mean picking a more appropriate canopy or learning to pack a snivel.

PS- Can I get a high five for my bicycle analogy earlier? I think it was pretty good.

Until I see the damage I'm not inclined to believe it was all that serious. And for the record, it's light weight gear. If you have a poor configuration that leads to a gear damaging hard opening then repair, reconfigure, and rejump. Jumpers these days are getting 1) soft, and 2) too much like skydivers when it comes to gear repairs and expectations. Fucking sew it up and quit bitching! It didn't completely fail, said jumper didn't even get scratched.

I would call it a TOTAL failure... make sure and find the pictures he posted of the harness in the comments.

https://www.facebook.com/...p;type=2&theater

Well if you say so. I'm just glad he was able to magically float to earth unscathed after his total failure.

Holy shit, just saw pictures. That ish is cray cray! That's bad news bears. glad he lived. Maybe some more reefing next time, small mesh?

Just in regards to the body position, I was doing the same for a while. When you are at a point where your tracking well and fast, full speed/angle pitches should probably be avoided. My helmet almost came off and I saw stars BAD off Brento once. Now, just before pitch, I push my arms right down and drop my knees right before I grab the PC. Soft as now. I'm also on a Troll 285 with no slider control. Hope this helps

...photo unavailable??

Light weight gear is a bullshit excuse. It was a type 8 harness just like every other harness on the market. Also blaming the jumper is fucking retarded. If it was truly an issue with gear configuration then confluence wraps would be falling apart all over the place. Heavy jumpers are common, steep or poor tracks are common, hard openings are common, what isn't common is harness failure. I personally think something may have gone awry in production. That being said I am impressed with Squirrels immediate recall of the product, others may have let it slide until there was a repeat incident.

If we were talking about accelerated wear or minor damage after 20+ hard openings I could see your point about it being light gear. However this is 1 hard opening on new gear. What would have happened if he was a bit closer to the max rated load? What if the opening was a bit harder?

If we hear from the horses mouth that it was a catastrophic failure we should err on the side of caution until it's proved otherwise rather than dismiss it.

The line between bruises from a hard landing and a fatality is pretty thin when we're talking about harness failure. I'm glad we're on the right side of that line this time but someone shouldn't have to go in for us to take note.

I'm sure Jeremy Graczyk would have loved to be able to "sew it up and quit bitching". What a glib comment.

The fact that the gear is light is no excuse for sudden catastrophic failure from something that isn't an extraordinary event (1 hard opening). The weight savings are mainly from the light material on the container and light buckles, these are not what failed. The weakness is not inherent to the reduced weight of the gear.

Reduced life span and increased inspection requirements are acceptable trade-offs for light gear, but it must be able to cope well with the usage that can be reasonably anticipated for it designed purpose. Any specific limitation needs to be made clear.

You reference "poor configuration" which is pretty vague and just a red herring. Hard openings happen, in the context of this single jump on new gear the cause of the hard opening isn't particularly relevant (it's not like he was packed slider down). The jumper stated he hard multiple harder openings on other light gear which only shows minimal damage after 20+ jumps.

Link doesnt work, can someone post pictures here?

Pics attached

Just to add I think it's pretty straightforward that the container had a weakness in this situation and the manufacturer has done the right thing to recall, explain and publicise this.

Also, Atair designed the canopy for slider down, but it has since been well proven for terminal jumps, is widely used for this purpose and they now recommend it for this, however with the addition of the slow slider.

If it was me I would jump the slow slider and flare out of the track briefly on deployment, mainly to look after my body, but also to be kind on my gear.

Glad the jumper is ok and that future containers will be improved.

BTW Adrenalin have updated their design:

http://adrenalinbase.com/index.php?L=en&T=news&Page=1

"continuous double Type 8 so it's super strong" according to the marketing. So strong that none of testing machines were able to break it apparently.

The marketing certainly doesn't give the impression that it's delicate because of the lightness. Why are people so quick jump in to defend it on this basis that it's lightweight?

Glib indeed. My earlier statements were based on so many of the conflicting assessments by the vast many internet experts and without seeing the gear. After seeing the video I have no problem admitting I was wrong to assume calling it a catastrophic failure was an overstatement. It was pretty blown apart.

And nice work by the jumper staying in the saddle and working above the line twists to pilot yourself to safety.

It is hard to see in the pics co can you please clarify whether the confluence wrap and stitching failed or did the diagonal tear off at the top of the confluence wrap.

Just to clarify. Only the lift web would have been double type 8. I am assuming that the diagonal was only a single layer as is the industry standard.

Holly shit balls Wow, glad the jumper is ok! Can someone Pm me the video if it's available? I have hard time imagining how the landing looked like

I will definitely address many issues regarding this incident and change few things in my Canopy set up as well as my body position on deployment. Adrenaline will look after me with my LD2 and make sure things hold next time I jump.

hello mr. outtabounz,

please continue to use your harness correctly, no modifications needed for you.

enjoy,

luka

Close
The MLW, lower leg straps, upper leg straps and horizontal back strap are all double-layer Type 8 webbing. The diagonal back-straps and risers are single-layer Type 8 webbing. All skydiving industry standard.
Only the chest-strap is non-standard 3/4 inch wide.

The problem arose when they copied the shoulder joint on a low-speed pilot emergency parachute harness, but used a confluence wrap that was weaker than the industry norm.
The problem began with the PEP which was the weakest design still in production ....
The FAA should retire their low-speed category for PEPs.

Squirrel's new shoulder inlay is a huge improvement - vastly stronger - and should become the production standard for light-weight harnesses.

The shoulder inlay is an improvement. It's essentially sewn with bartacks and it is still loaded in peel rather then in shear. The load is however at a much better angle. Just to be clear I do think it will fix the problem and it's retrofit able to the existing rigs. I wouldn't call it an ideal solution and I'm not sure I'd advocate it as a standard for the industry. There are better designs out there that totally bypass the problem moving all the load on the stitching into shear. But at the cost of a L-Bar or solid link or slotted buckle. Heaven forbid that you might add three or four ounces to a rig.

My opinions.

If you want integrated risers then sew in one of the Oval solid links. Rated for 5000 lb.

A better standard would be an L-Bar. Slightly heavier. Rated for 3000 lb. Replaceable risers.

If you wanted to eliminate the leg strap hardware then I would do a slip harness. Lateral has a loop of webbing sandwiched into it, loop towards the container where the MLW slides freely through. So it's a continues harness like you have now with an open loop inside the Lateral. Harness naturally tightens around your legs and lower back on opening. I would do the shoulder joint like a Softy with a slotted buckle. It allows you to actually adjust the harness to some degree to fit the jumper. The hardware takes the load but that's how the Softy does it and the only stitching there is in in shear. And no more dependence on aluminum climbing hardware. All the harness loads naturally with no slack from tightening your leg straps. No wasted weight.

If I was going to set a standard those are some of the things I would look at. Move the load to the back side of the continues harness like the three ring does. Or look at some of the stronger PEP harnesses like the strong or softy. Not the national.

Lee

Watch Thy Bridle has a nice write up with pictures explaining the different harness construction techniques and the issues related to this service bulletin:

http://www.watchthybridle.com/...arness-construction/

I think its a good thing over all. You must be hauling to be getting slammed on opening frequently. Common sense dictates you might want to consider lowering your opening force by slowing down. This probably saved someones life for futures sake. An issue was discovered and solved. I would give this guy a lifetimes supply of squirrel underpants since i would have def shit mine.

Looks like this same container without the bulletin done?,or...what

http://basejumpingspots.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Place-where-MLW-was-detached-from-the-main-risers.jpg

I thought that was the incident that prompted the service bulletin. If not you can see why it was needed

Anyone care to discuss the rumors of Squirrel bridles failing the rudimentary Bridge Day gear inspection?

failing on what grounds?

Lee

That's a silly rumor to spread.

The only thing being inspected in the bridle department would have been length. Since the BD rule is 9'.

I suppose if a squirrel bridle is 8'6", it doesn't meet the requirement, but it surely doesn't fail anything.

They were more like 7'-8'.

 

StrongLite bridles are 10’ from loop to loop, and 244cms from the bottom pin to the end of the loop, exactly, which is 8’. That is the standard length. We will make bridles of any length up to 12’ total (loop to loop) for customers who ask. We don’t recommend using non-OEM bridles with the StrongLite for obvious reasons (pin orientation, pin type, grommet spacing, etc).

In our opinion, more bridle is not better or safer for wingsuit use. Jason Bell (Bridge Day org) has set a 9’ (pin to PC) rule based on many years in the sport and watching many people jump that sub-terminal bridge. Jason is correct to specify the length that works best for Bridge Day, and we support his requirement.

When it comes to wingsuit BASE, in our opinion, bridles can be too long. Bridle length is subjective and current opinions are mostly based on decades-old gear plus a lot of bad wingsuit technique, mixed in with some very scary wingsuit deployment videos.

Our bridle is based on our wingsuit experience. In the past few years there have been increasing wingsuit and tracking fatalities and incidents as a result of bridle / PC entanglements. After a certain length, more bridle equals a higher chance of bridle/PC entanglement. There are countless factors ranging from angle of attack, airspeed, quality of PC toss, PC type, PC & bridle staging & packing, etc. It is more complex than 6-12" of difference from bridle to bridle, but I'll try to stay on topic...

When you place the PC into the laminar flow to the side of your body or wingsuit, at least as far as your wingtip, then it will be carried downstream. If you do not do this, then a 6’ bridle and a 12’ bridle are the same - the PC could end up back in your burble. A good PC toss is always necessary, on every jump, regardless of bridle length. But the longer your bridle is, the better the chance of big loops of it being carried downstream with the PC and the more of it there is to entangle with, and that will be a factor on every single toss regardless of where you put the PC. Bridles can be carried downstream faster than the PC, because they are lighter – when this happens, and the PC then collides with the downstream bridle, it’s not good.

8’ to get the pins out, and 10’ from loop to loop, is what we have been jumping for years behind many types/sizes of wingsuits in many conditions and at all possible airspeeds, for standard parachutes and ultra-light parachutes. After thousands of jumps, fatalities analysis, and other reported incidents that aren’t on the BFL, our opinion is that this length is ideal for both extracting the pack job and reducing the chances of a bridle / PC entanglement. We realize that many people assume that because 8’ is better than 6’, then 9’ must be better than 8’. We believe it is more complicated than that.

Should we jump a longer bridle which might, maybe, help to reach a few inches past the end of the burble in a very rare shitty scenario, or should we jump a bridle which is almost certainly less likely to result in an entanglement on every single deployment that you initiate? In our opinion the latter is the better choice, and we are more concerned about a PC / bridle entanglement than we are with our ability to thoroughly extract the PC and fly the wingsuit at a normal angle of attack.

We don’t see the point to design things that may possibly help a case of bad technique, but will probably reduce the safety of good technique. The argument that something should be designed for the worst case scenario is made completely invalid by the fact that in this case, the worst case scenario design reduces safety in the standard scenario. Good technique (the result of training and education) and a design that is optimized to perform best and safest on 99.9% of deployments, is our objective. To design for the .01% of deployments and then compromise the 99.9% does not make sense, to us.

Bridle length discussions are born from rear-facing video footage of bad flying and bad PC deployments in both the skydive and BASE environments. Saying that we should change BASE designs to maybe possibly make bad technique less dangerous, is not the way forward. The reasoning that “Because 8 feet is better than 6 feet, then even longer must be even better!” is not correct in this instance.

We choose to not increase the risk of having a total failure (bridle/PC entanglement) on our deployments in order to reduce the risk of a hesitation (PC in burble) for a theoretical bad deployment. We have heard rumors of experienced (skydive) wingsuit riggers making 12’ bridles for people, and at the same time teaching old deployment technique – again, the discussion of wingsuit parachute deployments is much more complex than a few inches of bridle. Burble obsession is not healthy without knowledge of the other factors involved in deployment technique.

In the end, it’s up to you to think about it and decide, and then choose. We jump our own gear constantly, and design it for our application of it. Our years of testing in the wingsuit BASE environment counts for a lot when it comes to our products and what we use them for.

If you disagree with the above, the simple solution is to continue jumping whatever bridle you think works best for you – but we feel it is important to understand the reasons why.

This article is from 2010. http://www.base-book.com/bridle-length

It would be interesting to know how many jumpers knew of/understood/were made aware of the shortened bridle before they went ahead and used it for anything other than wingsuit deployments.

If a company designs and markets a product for a specific purpose (wingsuit/tracking), are they also responsible for defending why it is not "best suited" for other purposes?

If I design a 15lb road bicycle, am I also charged with explaining why it may not be the "best" choice for mountain biking?

It's an interesting question, especially in our sport where the standard for properly informing customers seems to be a moving target.

I have personally appreciated the responses/explanations Squirrel has made regarding their products.

From Squirrel's website:

"The StrongLite...is engineered specifically for the needs of modern wingsuit BASE jumpers and trackers."

http://squirrel.ws/stronglite

I think that when you are using a product that is manufactured with a particular environment in mind, it is incumbent upon the jumper to make sure he or she understands what the differences are when it is taken outside of that environment. I am very new to BASE, but I believe it is generally understood that very careful consideration should be taken when taking a piece of gear outside of its specifically intended use. It's sort of like taking an OSP to Norway.

However, I can certainly agree that a shorter bridle is something worth pointing out. Perhaps it is mentioned in the owner's manual?

Edit: I'm not sure if it was recently updated, but there's also a mention of the bridle length when you order an SL online.

Excuse my ignorance, I am only a tracker/normal jumper, but i thought WS-bridles were generally longer (and may have the velcro for the leg-pouch, which also seems to be going out of fashion) than your standard-bridle? Is this incorrect?

http://www.base-book.com/bridle-length

Thanks, interesting read!

I am aware that BASEjumping and skydiving are different sports, but for my understanding, why do skyjumpers seem to prefer longer bridles? They cant all throw like little girls, or can they?

I cant think of a normal application where an 8 ft bridle as opposed to a 9 ft would cause a major problem...probably why its not specifficaly mentioned

*Please note that the STRONGLITE is not suited to aerials or any application where there is the increased possibility of unstable deployments and a bridle/container entanglement. This is a wingsuit-specific container system.

There is only so much a company can do. At some point the user has to use his brain.

WHAT? not suited for aerials!!!!!

It is a big over hang. I don't know why they don't have a wedge of fabric running from that corner along the lateral to the junction. It might make it a bit less snag able and help pull the bottom of the container into your back.

Lee

Wouldn't that interfere with your tracking pants? I feel like you'd have to sag your pants if they did that.

"We don’t see the point to design things that may possibly help a case of bad technique, but will probably reduce the safety of good technique. The argument that something should be designed for the worst case scenario is made completely invalid by the fact that in this case, the worst case scenario design reduces safety in the standard scenario. Good technique (the result of training and education) and a design that is optimized to perform best and safest on 99.9% of deployments, is our objective. To design for the .01% of deployments and then compromise the 99.9% does not make sense, to us. "

I can't speak to the technical conclusions but the design premise is sound and well said. You can only idiot-proof a design so much before the design itself becomes idiotic.


44

Flare would be on top of the pants.

Waist band would be at the normal height at the junction. The bottom of the rig hangs low over them just as it does now but wit less of an over hanging snag point and pulled tighter to the back at the bottom corner.

Lee

exactly. And it would be a much bigger hole in the back of the wingsuit too.

Its a great design the way it is.

It wouldn't effect the size of the hole for the lateral at all. The triangle shaped strip would come down to meet the bottom edge of the lateral webbing. This design is used on the wsxtreme, though the overhang past the lateral is much shorter on that container. I'm not sure how effective it would be on the stronglite given that the overhang is so large, unless maybe it was stiffened, but even then I'm not sure. I think in the situation that you got bridle under that, it would be pretty fucked with or without a triangular piece of fabric sewn in there...so don't do that. It's a container designed for stable deployments with wingsuits and tracking gear.