Basejumper.com - archive

Edited to include name and basics.
Tom A. will post a summary of his
findings from inspecting the gear.

Bryan Turner, 32, Canadian, was living in NY.
Troll-265 MDV inside of a Helium container,
flap open, bridle with floating bottom pin,
42" A/V pilot chute by Asylum. No gear check.
Belly to earth, solo, stowed, pitched, PC got
to bridle stretch but towed till water impact.

Condolences to his family and friends

http://www.kmvt.com/...ridge-295648931.html

http://www.kmvt.com/...ridge-295648931.html

Bryan Turner. Bryan was an experienced jumper (not a student) who was jumping with our group.

Family has been notified.

I was at the exit point, but did not see the jump (I was helping a student, who was about to do his first unpacked jump).

I have video shot from the exit point, and the recovered gear.

I'll try to post an accident report as soon as I get something written up.

This is shocking and desperately sad news.

I heard from Bryan only a couple of weeks ago; he wrote of his upcoming trip to Twin Falls and Moab. I met Bryan at the same time as Adam Rubin in TF last July. We became friends after talking through Adam's death the day after it happened.

Bryan had recently completed a trip to Brento to practice his tracking skills. He was stoked to share his video. He was a thoughtful and cautious jumper and had received quality training from more than one source.

Bryan was an intelligent, sensitive and articulate individual, with a developed sense of social justice. I am aghast at his passing. He was a fine man.

fly free buddy.

I have attached an incident report.

I have also posted a discussion of floating pin bridles and possible closed container malfunctions in the technical forum here.

I have intentionally not included that full discussion in this thread, because it is entirely speculative and there is no evidence to conclude how Bryan's rig malfunctioned.

That sucks beyond words.

Thanks Tom.

 

give the man a break, he took his time to investigate and report the details of this incident so that the rest of us can learn.

and he attached his business name to a death of unknown cause in otherwise perfectly functioning equipment by a jumper who did absolutely everything right. I can't imagine a better way to get people to AVOID his business.

This has gotta be about the least helpful post that I've ever seen in this forum - attacking someone for a letterhead used on an incident report.

Thanks Tom for the report.

BSBD

Not productive at all, Colsco.

Letterheads are used on almost all incident reports, being a Ministery, a Safety Board, Expert Group, etc. In BASE, no such thing exists. The best we have is schools and mentors.

Of course, you can file your own incident report with the Colsco letterhead. Not commercial or anything. Now that would be something.

man what the fuck ???
do u know even know Tom ?
u r an idiot
and that kind of behaviour does not belong among us
choose your words carefuly and show some respect

Thanks Tom. As opposed to the internet trolls, Bryan's friends really appreciate the time and effort you put into gathering the information and reporting it to us.

And my reaction is still... Fucking bullshit man.

hey.

so this is the first time i ever heard of this floating pin configuration.
can you say what are the advantages of having one?

because seeing miles video ( https://youtu.be/_J6efl-oYpk )
it looks like its prone to lock the container.

Tom wrote a good report about a fatal accident at a public venue, so sourcing it is important; that way, people with questions and comments know where to go -- and people who want to cite it in whole or part can do so.

Imagine the news story that quotes the report and IDs it as being written by "some guy in Twin Falls who was there."

In the meantime, I edited your post:



44

I think it should transfer the tension to the top pin in case that the bottom (floating) pin is lock, because the floating pin is not sewn to the bridle the tension could transfer to the other pin

but wont that cause a horse shoe mel?
or supposedly the lock will be cleared by the canopy coming out of the container?

For the purposes of keeping this conversation all in one place, a thread specific to the floating bridle can be found here:

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

It important to emphasize that, while relevant to the discussion, the floating bridle may not have caused this incident.

Correct, but it's definitely the prime suspect!

Even if the floating-pin bridle wasn't to blame here I think enough negatives have surfaced to warrant discontinuing its use.

Agreed.

If I had to guess, I would say it was #4 or #5 from that document. As impossible as those orientations seem, the other possibilities seem orders of magnitude away.

I just think Canadians have a hard time at that bridge. There have been three solid Canadian impacts there that I'm aware of. Jason, Lonnie, and now Bryan. We shouldn't let Canadians jump from that bridge anymore.

Ody

Just a point of clarification:

This video was filmed and edited by Gabriel Harrop. Not anyone named Miles.

Sorry I guess I read wrong

I was under the same impression. Miles should have cleared that up better.

Any one know why he switched from the standard Morpheus bridle? Or have things changed over there?

I was fortunate enough to have met Bryan and got to know him. I'm thankful for that. He was such a caring and sincere guy. This is terrible. RIP brother.

I've eluded to this elsewhere, but I think it bears repeating in this thread for future education related to this fatality and in such a case anyone considers a change to a manufacturer's original design through the introduction of different components.

I won't add to the speculation surrounding the circumstances under which the floating pin bridle was introduced to this rig. I'll just say it boils down to knowing gear and having a specific reason before making or suggesting a change.

Manufacturers design, test, and implement features for their gear specifically. It's not by chance that they arrive at a configuration. They don't publish manuals about their gear for sport. They serve a purpose. Know your gear and use it as configured by the manufacturer.

This container was not designed with a floating pin. All the experimentation in the world does not negate the manufacturer's instructions.

All BASE gear is experimental, we learn when bad things happen. This is the nature of what we do, and hopefully we learn something from those that have paid the price.
~J
981

I owe this community an apology, because I feel I should have posted this much earlier.

Today is the one year anniversary of Bryan's accident. I have resisted making this post for a year out of respect for Bryan's wishes, and what I thought would be his wishes.

But it's been a year, and I think he would want me to make this information publicly available by now.

I was on the bridge the day this happened, Bryan actually cut in front of me. I was also one of maybe four people to thoroughly inspect his gear after the accident. I inspected it with Tom and helped with the investigation.

When the report came out I thought it lacked a couple of details that I felt were important, or at the very least should have been included. I am attaching two pictures of the jumper's gear for reference.

Bryan got his container four jumps prior to the his fatal one. While it was used, it was in immaculate shape.



The first picture is of the stiffener to his container. It is badly warped, by as much as an inch (I have giant hands). When inspecting the container during the trade, I do not believe it was like this. As a matter of fact, just how flush the stiffener was to the pins was a "selling point" of the individual that traded containers with Bryan. The exact comment was "the stiffener, flush with the pins, actually pushes the pins out when they are stood up by the bridle". As a matter of fact the ride to the place we were crashing prior to the fatal jump we talked about how sketchy his new container looked due to how flush the stiffener was against the pins. I believe that the warping may have happened in the fatal jump.

In the months after the accident, I examined a number of Helium (and mislabeled Morpheus) containers and found warping of that stiffener common. I also found owners of containers flip the fuck out and go in denial when told that the warping of that stiffener happened due to interaction with the pin (sorry Tom... I know one or two called you directly in a state of panic attack and you had to deal with them...), so I stopped asking friends for containers to examine. However, it's clear that there is enough interaction to typically badly warp said stiffener. This points to the stereotypical container lock associated with tuck-under containers (and Helium containers, especially ones with stiffener are widely accepted as the "worst offenders"). Thing is, according to Tom, that malfunction only adds a couple of seconds of freefall - not supposed to be fatal on a 1 second stowed jump from Perrine - and I believe him based on my own tests. So long as you shift body position to the appropriate angle (and Bryan did), the mal should clear.




The second is burn scars on the bridle. I examined a number of floating pin bridles (including a couple that were well used by Tom) and did not find any burn scars even remotely as thorough as on Bryan's bridle. Furthermore, they start well before the two pins interact, suggesting to me that the bridle was under substantial pressure prior to the pins interacting.

My interpretation of these two pieces of evidence is that the bottom pin jammed in the corner of the container (as a reference on watchthybridle.com) and the second pin actually jammed it in place. The hypothesis is that the second malfunction made the first substantially worse, perhaps unrecoverable altogether.

Other interpretations are very much welcome. Bryan was one of those people who would want people to learn from what happened to him. We spent many hours discussing the technicalities of this sport at our local watering hole. He was one of the people that read over the fatality list and made sure to not repeat any mistakes that may have been made in the past.

Every year someone goes in with a pilot chute in tow, and usually that's where the investigation ends. This case is unique in that I was present for a thorough examination of the gear immediately prior to the accident, and immediately afterwards.

Bryan was a true student of BASE, obsessed with making every and all minutiae work in his favor and containing himself to well below the limits of his abilities. Detail oriented and cautious to absurdity. One of the few people I have met even more obsessed with technicalities and understanding how gear works than myself. He would want us to learn from what happened to him, and what happened to him is a testament of how unforgiving our sport is. You can do everything right, and shit still happens.

My takeaway is that if you don't have a couple of seconds of freefall to spare, a tuck under (especially Helium or mislabeled Gargoyle or Razor) container may not be the best option out there. That floating pins are probably a bad idea. And that no matter how careful you are, how hard you try to stack the odds in your favor, shit still happens. To question what the elders tell you, because they could be wrong. They could be offering you solutions to very minor issues that carry with them catastrophic tail risk.

And of course, if you want to survive BASE jumping be a complete fucking asshole. Only the good ones go in.

edit: fuck you Google Drive...

okay so my inbox got flooded with requests to view pictures from Google Drive, so I uploaded them elsewhere (they're too big to attach here :( ) if you still can't see the images let me know and I'll figure something else out

I wish I had got to meet Bryan and jump with him,
sure sounds like he was one of the good Bryans, I did
read one of his favorite books, "Happiness Hypothesis"
and learned a whole lot from it. Sorry for your loss.

As for the parachute fatality, most of my jumps have
been on Gargoyles and Helium, so I have a couple of
clarification questions.

1. What do you mean by mis-labeled container?

2. Plastic stiffeners between two layers of cordura
are supposed to be flat/flush, right? I mean that
is how it is on my Mirage, Gargoyles, Sigma, and
every other rig I have ever jumped, please can
you elaborate on that detail for me, thank you.

1. His container was labeled a gargoyle container, but had the pin protection (and dynamic corners, but those are an option) of a helium, with the grommets partially under the stiffener. I actually found a couple more of these in the wild, as well as a bunch of people complaining their gargoyle container was not of the properly labeled size (Bryan's previous gargoyle was labeled with the wrong size). Makes me wonder the quality control that goes on.
2. My understanding is it is supposed to be flush. Ironically in my opinion you are less likely to get hesitations and delays if the stiffener is bent.

I have been jumping gargoyles for over 900 jumps and never had a hesitation, not saying it cant happen probably depends on a lot of things and how you have your pins oriented. My tuck tabs are flush and have never been wet.
as for sizing they are probably not mislabeled they will build you the wrong size container unless you tell them you have 1 size smaller canopy or have Atair
I will never buy another one because they would not fix this when I ordered brand new from them

The first part of that statement is probabilistic. Just because it hasn't happened yet doesn't mean it's impossible, or that you haven't been getting lucky. Jumping gargoyles over heliums decreases risk, as does container wear.

I am well aware of atair canopy sizing. That is not the case I am referring to. The labeled size of Bryan's old container and new container were identical. The old one was a size smaller than the new one.

First, I'm truly sorry about your friend.

On your invitation for other interpretations, I really think you're placing too much emphasis on the flap. I can't say for certain that you're wrong to factor it without me actually putting hands on the gear, but I do think you're weighting that too heavily.

I'd bet without the floating pin, this probably would not have been a fatality.

A floating pin puts the bridle on a path of least resistance. Bottom pin did not extract for some reason (no one knows for certain), so the bridle went on, popped the top pin and ran it down to the bottom pin.

I do think you're right that that it only further exacerbated the problem and that if it wasn't locked from the get-go, it was when the bridle and fixed pin did their thing.

I think without the pocket it wouldn't be a fatality either. Floating pins are very difficult to lock up permanently (without one side of the pin going into the eye of the other pin... which is fairly impossible outside of purposefully setting up your pin that way). Believe me, I tried for many many hours. You can get it to hesitate to about 30-50 lbs of pull force, but ultimately it clears.

In my testing, you have better luck inducing pin-stiffener interference on Helium containers.

Also consider the burn marks on the bridle. Something was putting a ton of pressure on that thing starting at when the top pin was halfway to the bottom pin, which leads me to believe that even before the top pin slid all the way down to the bottom pin, the bottom pin was already somehow jammed.

Hypothetically, I think it's also possible that a floating pin (which would rotate the bottom pin but would not pull it) could exacerbate this kind of container lock scenario by rotating the bottom pin towards the pocket for it to get jammed in.


A floating pin is supposed to always extract the top pin first. The theory goes that the top pin usually has less pressure and popping it reduces pressure on the bottom pin making it easier to pop (similar to how reserves deploy better without a main pushing against them). That's the theory anyway. There appears to be substantial tail risk associated with the use of floating pins.

I've found that in practice, the bottom pin always extracted first and there was always more slack between the pins than the distance between the grommets (i.e. the pins never got sucked together.) This held true on my Vertex (Factory equipped with sliding pin bridle) over the course of hundreds of jumps of every type. I'm surprised that the manufacturer has never spoken up about the issue/controversy.

I'll agree that Bryan was gear conscious and detail oriented to the point of absurdity. Sadly we won't know for certain what bizarre interaction caused this incident.

BSBD Bryan

When packing after tracking jumps I frequently had to pull the floating pin back down the bridle several inches, suggesting that the bottom (floating) pin didn't always extract first. That was with 1-2'' of slack between the pins. Of course it's highly rig and jump dependent but it should be easy enough for others to confirm by inspecting the visible wear due to the friction and constriction of the type 4 webbing going through the FP.

In a normal SD pull orientation I do agree that it's more likely to pop the bottom pin first due to the bridle's 90 degree pull direction.

I have a problem with several points it appears you are trying to make.
Firstly I don't think you can keep calling it a "Mis-Labelled" container. I'll admit that I am unsure of their latest practices but when these rigs first came out they all had Gargoyle embroidered on the yoke. The same was true for the WS Extreme as well.
Secondly. Pin protection and dynamic corner options are not a signifier of Helium VS Gargoyle. Maybe I am mis-understanding your point in referencing these. Sidewalls and tray length is the big difference between the two.
Thirdly. I am pretty damn certain that the pin protector flap is located in the same position to the grommets on all Morpheus rigs regardless of rig type.
Fourthly. I wouldn't claim container sizing to be a quality control issue. It is for sure an issue but I don't feel it has a bearing on actual build quality.

Then there would be a lot of "lucky" jumpers out there making "lucky" jumps every single day. While this type of malfunction may be more likely or made worse when using a floating pin bridle on a Gargoyle/Helium than other rigs it is an irrelevant argument.
With all due respect to you and your friend the facts are that he took it upon himself to resurrect discontinued practices and apply them to a rig that was never designed or tested for such equipment.

That is not accurate. Bryan didn't just wake up one day and build himself a floating pin bridle in his garage. He sought out the best BASE instruction he could and during that time period he was shown floating pin bridles by someone whose opinion and experience he respected enough to be fully convinced of their potential benefits despite there being very very little about them that can be found online. I did the same, as did at least 8 other people I met and jumped with in Twin Falls in 2014.

The first person to identify the container as mislabeled was Tom. I'm sure he knows the difference.

I have not measured the pack tray, but have been told that they use the same pattern for constructing both helium and gargoyle containers.

The difference in grommet placement can be observed even from their website photos of the various containers. Take a look.

Sorry, maybe I should have said "He chose to apply resurrected ideas to equipment that was never designed for its use". Either way he made the choice to move away from manufacturer specs. It is unfortunate that you and your friends were misled.

The same Tom that recommended installing a floating pin bridle on a Morpheus rig? I would like clarification as to what "Mis-labelled" means, if it is in reference to the Gargoyle embroidery being on the yoke then you are flat out wrong. The Gargoyle embroidery on the yoke was standard issue on all Gargoyles, Heliums, and WS Extremes (I am unsure if this has changed in recent years).

You seem to place a lot of faith in what you are told.

I think you may be confusing grommet placement and pin cover placement with overall pin cover width. I assure you that the grommet placement is the same on all their rigs and is a standardized distance from the edge of the container, as would be the case with every manufacturer. Likewise it is my experience that the distance from the grommets to the edge of the pin cover is also a standardized measurement. The only difference that is obviously noticeable between all the Morpheus rigs is the total width of the pin covers, ie. how far out along the side flap they continue. Read again, the pin cover location in relation to the grommets doesn't change.
P.S. I have owned 2 Gargoyles, a WS Extreme, a Razor, and have packed more Heliums than I can remember.

Were all 9 of you SRBA students/affiliates?

I'd rather not get into that here. My sole objective here is to counter the stories and reports heavily implying that Bryan was a lone reckless rigger intentionally operating outside the bounds of commonly accepted BASE practices.

I would not use the word common I've been jumping about 5 years seen hundreds of rigs and never seen one somebody was using.

Not saying he was some reckless rigger at all, but I agree with the above statement. In 10+ years and jumping all over the world, the first time I had heard of someone using a floating pin was this incident. Can someone again explain why this was thought to be a good idea again all of a sudden? I know the theory behind the floating pin, but this seems like a solution to a problem that doesnt really exist.

I definitely didn't intend my posts to come off in that manner even if I don't agree with Lyosha's insinuations about Morpheus rigs. I believe you that Bryan wasn't reckless and I believe you that he wasn't acting alone. But he was most certainly acting outside the bounds of commonly accepted BASE practices and he was definitely operating outside of the manufacturer's specifications. Again, it is unfortunate that you and your friends were misled and that Bryan's trust in his mentors ended up costing him.

Which is why it went away in the first place. I have seen several floating pins in use over the years but only ever on the Vertex. I too have never understood why people would resurrect the idea and, even worse, promote its use on any random rig.

No he wasn't alone, you and 8 other bozos got together, resurrected this stupid and discarded bridal design and one of you paid the ultimate price. Your inspiration coming from a guy who throws flaming tennis balls at old dudes canopies soaked in turpentine...

It's very sad, but the fact that you keep blathering about how it was a "really researched and thought out idea" just reinforces that you and your possibly 7 remaining students don't get it.. which is maybe even sadder.

http://www.basejumper.com/...post=2977294#2977294

http://www.basejumper.com/...post=2977309#2977309

http://www.basejumper.com/...post=2980926#2980926

http://www.basejumper.com/...post=2977313#2977313

I know a guy who jumps a floating pin rig. He's still using it I believe.

I think blaming a freak accident on 'trusting his mentors' is a bit much. I do agree that the floating pin was almost certainly involved, but it's been over a year now and still nobody has anything more than theories as to what actually happened. Doesn't that indicate that whatever happened was very difficult to predict?

And does anyone know why the floating pin was discontinued by the manufacturer in the first place?
Did they have safety concerns or was it just not popular?
Designs come and go for a variety of reasons.

I haved rigged 2 test bridles for the 2pin. I am waiting for replies from other BASE riggers opinions of my design. I dont want to go the way of floating pin scenario.
One of my designs has too little extraction force which could be dealt with intensive rigging. The other is much simpler. but maybe less reliable. same status as the present stuff. Shoot me an email and i will send you a vid.
Take care,
space

it's not: I haved
it's: I had
'I haved' doesn't exist in common english

edited: to include quote and one more time 'Per Bealio'

*It's

correct
going to edit again 'Per te et Per voi'

Yet this one was brought back and encouraged on a rig that never used it in the first place.

I'm still unclear as to how the container and pocket/flap is in question if the video clearly showed that the bridle had cleared channel on the
bottom flap of the container.

I think that Lyosha's descriptions could be confusing you. When he says the pin jammed in the "corner" and it wouldn't have happened without the "pocket", I believe he is actually referring to the right hand pin cover assembly that the flap tucks under. Not the bridle pocket.
Of course I could be wrong so hopefully he will clarify.

That's how I read it, too...where the flap tucks. I get what he's saying on the thought that the pin jammed in there.

It's that the video showed the bridle clearing the "channel" of the flap/pocket that's the contradiction. How could the bridle clear said channel and this all get blamed on the flap/pin-cover assembly?

Sorry, i didnt check the date. but dead is dead, can anyone give the history of the floating pin?
take care, Respect to the deather.
space

In general I would agree with you there, and I've had that discussion with Bryan. However, the floating pin setup was presented as a "conoisseur's choice" bridle of sorts. The bridle setup for those looking to put every little bit of odds in their favor in this sport, which certainly fits Bryan's description. I was never a fan personally, but could not formulate a cohesive answer for why it was any more dangerous than a standard bridle in my conversations with Bryan on the topic. And the truth is noone could. But there was a cohesive answer to why a floating pin was better. If you are one of those people that gets swayed by facts rather than opinions, and you listened to certain highly experienced people speak while still in the formative stages of what you consider "safe gear", it is very likely you too would have more jumps with a floating pin bridle.

There are many people that use floating pin bridles. I know a few that aren't Tom-affiliated. If you've been in this sport long enough and went to some of the more popular events (i.e. bridge day) you've jumped with plenty, many not affiliated with any particular BASE course, just people that do too much research for their own good. Or newbies renting gear for their first jumps that have no idea what that thing they're putting on their back even is. Like all things in this sport, they do tend to clump around certain mentors who think they are a better idea than otherwise. Tuning brake settings is another one of those things that tends to clump. Pilot chute preference for low objects, I could continue this list for a while...

For the confusion regarding which pocket I am referring to - there's really only one that could do a good job jamming the pin. http://www.watchthybridle.com/...pin-locks-in-detail/ - "tuck-in, pin cannot rotate, not slide, bridle joint has to go around corner".

Look, I'm going to tread dangerously close to something that will get me banned, but I'm being objective, and there's a lesson to be learned in here that will keep people alive.

I call bullshit.

What facts vs opinions? What fucking "connoisseur"? One premise is entirely based upon the theory of a skydiving system with pin/closing loop tension on two separately closed containers on one harness.

Count a handful of people jumping floating pin bridles at all, irrespective of the gear in question (which shouldn't have been fucking jumped with a floating pin) and cite your own observation of "you listened to certain...people speak while still in the formative stages of what you consider 'safe gear'."

"FORMATIVE STAGES"

How would you know any better on what's presented to you?

The container in question has how many thousands or tens of thousands of successful jumps worldwide and you're casting doubt on the design?

This isn't an attack. How would you know?


What is it? How many jump with floating pin bridles? A handful? Many? Plenty? And yeah...let's throw in newbies renting gear with no idea what they're jumping...

Look, dude..."If you've been in this sport long enough..."? How are you one to be asking "long enough" when guys with 20+ years in the sport are chiming in on this thread with "Floating pin bridle? Huh? WTF?"

In 12 years of jumping and a helluvalotta gear checks, I can count two rigs I know of before this incident; both were Vertex rigs and I know of no issues with jumps on those rigs. The outliers are others who've come to light and shared pics of what they've rigged in the past two years (back to the "formative stages" above) on a variety of containers.

We can speculate all day long, but let's not go so far as to throw too many theories beyond the real culprit. Let's fucking learn from this already and make sure it doesn't propagate to another death.

Not to keep harping on over this particular incident but you keep insisting that you and Bryan are super cautious jumpers, that are relentless in their quest for knowledge, who sought out every miniscule detail that could offer an advantage and spent hours discussing it all with each other. In all this time how many conversations did you have with the manufacturer (any manufacturer) about installing floating pin bridles on current generation gear?

That's a rhetorical question, but I know what you're getting at.

Here's a different example. Lots of people think custom deep brakes are awesome and increase your safety substantially. I do, and I use it sometimes. Yet it's a deviation from the factory configuration just like a floating pin bridle and can result in a similarly tragic outcome if setup incorrectly.

I watched a friend stall and backslide on opening off of Jawbone in Twin Falls while having his custom deep brakes setup and tuned. If it was a SL/PCA he may very well have hit the cliff.

If he had hit the cliff, would you be questioning his decisions for trying to customize his rig to make it safer?

A floating pin bridal and custom brake settings are not comparable at all. Its apples and oranges. Your buddy that almost hit Jaw Bone didn't set his DBS correctly. Custom brake settings are just that, custom. Every parachute I have ever owned, both skydiving and base, has been slightly modified to fit my weight and flare personality. That could be adjusting toggles for a better flare or adjusting brake settings for the opening characteristics I desire based on my body weight.

I can't believe this is even a response. This type of comparison makes me wonder about your complete lack of parachute knowledge that you should have learned at the DZ and not at the exit point.

I would question why he was setting them on a solid object when there is a span right there.
I have mine done, and like everyone else I am aware of we did it of the bridge

Were any manufacturers pushing the floating pins?
Maybe one should have rigging skills to survive BASE and sky jumping.. It is kinda like your life depends on it. I made my mistakes also but was able to stay alive and learn due to my tech minded brain and luck. Maybe some are not able to screw up and get away with it like me.
take care,
space

 

"Flogging a dead horse". Don't you mean "towing" a dead horse?

I can't offer a solid history at all but this is what I knew of it around 2000-2002 when I saw it. The first (and second)time I saw a floating bottom pin was on a Basic Research Vertex. That was the first of 2 I've seen in my entire jumping career. The theory didn't seem solid in my head so I ignored it. I'll rephrase that. The THEORY as an idea, seemed ok to me, but the reality of using it didn't add up in my head. There seemed to be no mechanical advantage, but I felt there was a disadvantage.

I'm going off memory so forgive me for not researching first. This is the theory as I remember, but I don't know when it was put into minimal production. Here it is: The bottom pin usually has the most tension. If the tension is too high, the bridle would slip through the bottom pin, and release the top pin loosening the pack job so the bottom pin would release easier.

That's it. Nothing more.





----

Out of the 2 bridles I've seen set up that way, I know one of the owners changed it to a fixed pin. I don't know about the second.

Rigs today have a few slightyl different configurations but a common one is on most rigs is, the bottom pin is not constricted with the flap closed. The bridle will move the flap away quite easily. Then, when the bottom pin is released, there's almost nothing holding the top closed.

Something to think about. Manufacturers weren't as dialed in as they are now. They were just people with ideas and sewing machines. Not everything had to make sense as long as it made sense to someone. These people with ideas and sewing machines were the "Experts" when in reality, they were partiers that just wanted to have fun, and make stuff to have fun with.

Eventually the partiers figure stuff out so the gear evolves. Ideas that seemed logical at one time get binned. "What was I thinking?"

In skydiving, I've not had a single rig I haven't had to modify something. I won't bother listing anything but even the great manufactures still make stuff that should have a slight design change.

The people that make skydiving gear do a great job but most of them don't skydive. They never use the equipment.

In BASE... that's generally not true. BASE jumpers who at least over see the manufacturing, use the gear, get feed back from users, and modify the equipment moving forward. My rig from 2005 is slightly different from my rig from 2000 even though it's the same model. Another 10 years later, that same model is still in production but it's slightly different again.... for the better.

I'll end this.

Try and take into account that early gear builders were far from experts. Many ideas have been scrapped because in use, they weren't sound. The good ideas are still in use and many have simply evolved as flight progresses.

I think we've squeezed all of the blood we can from this stone. Here's a summary:

Floating pin bridles are bad. On the vast majority of uses they perform perfectly well, and there is a rational theory behind them which could be used to encourage their use. That said they have been shown to carry tremendous tail risk. This risk is small in probability but catastrophic in outcome. Many here will claim that they were aware of this risk before this incident, but the reality is that there's no way to prove this.

There are two camps of people:

1. People who hate Tom, knew all along that floating pin bridles are bad, and see this as an opportunity to attack Tom yet again.

2. People who do not hate Tom, understand that there probably wasn't much in the way of evidence to demonstrate the (now well understood) tail risks before this incident, and recognize that all we can do is learn from the mistakes of the past.

Both camps of people, I think, recognize that floating pins are not a great idea. That's what's important here. That's why we have incident threads.

My apologies for the interruption. Everyone can get back to grinding their respective axes now.

Wrong, there's my third camp.

3. There's a growing new class of noobs that are full on delusional about BASE gear usage and history. They see jumping brand new canopies off the stupid fucking Jawbone as the place to test brake settings. AND they correlate that decision like the one where with 8 other buddies they all sew their own floating pin bridles.. where they're getting this dickbrain info is fairly obvious, sorry, truth sucks.

The Perrine should be a bastion of tried and trusted BASE knowledge. Somehow though, the "pros" are fucking this up and new jumpers are dying.

Do you get it? I don't think you do.

You're in group 1, I suspect.

^^^^This!!!!!

Two little camps and you've got it all figured out? It might be funny if it were that simple. Except for all the dead people, that is.

I'm not here to defend Tom against the very loud minority which hates him. I have nothing to gain from meddling in BASE politics and no ax to grind.

I get it. We all get it. You don't like him. If your attacks were going to have a negative impact on Tom or SRBA we would have seen it by now. They just aren't having the impact you'd like them too, and I'm not sure they ever will.

I'm just sick of every thread that can even be remotely linked to SRBA being polluted by the same handful of antagonists over, and over, and over.

There is something to be learned from this thread, and it has nothing to do with Tom and the SRBA. It's that floating pin bridles carry tail risk that wasn't obvious before this incident. Hindsight is crystal clear when compared to theory.

That's as much as I care to say on the topic.

Do you know it didn't become obvious to the creators? Things have changed a bit since Vertigo BASE Outfitters and Basic Research became one.

I have no axe. I have my own shit to worry about. When I go to the bridge with new jumper friends, if I don't know what's on their back, I look it over. If they're unsure about things, I try and assist. Perhaps it's selfish of me.

The bridge is a place where it's very easy to offer rigging advice/education, to give honest gear checks, and to learn proper gear checks and gear configuration. I don't care what you jump, but I do care how it's put together and if it's functional.

Newer jumpers, often just pack like a robot. That's fine I suppose, but that person better be the robot that sets brakes correctly, and routes bridles correctly.

The most common thing I hear, " that's what I was shown"

Well maybe, maybe not. If your brakes release prematurely 4 times out of 18, I'm pretty sure, you weren't shown how to improperly set your brakes.

Mechanical reasoning and rigging skills are essential. If you have a minimal amount of those skills, then it's best to learn exactly the parts and procedures that matter and make a check list. In 2016, There is no reason to have to guess how things work.

I don't think that this problem is quite as insular as you make it sound. I believe that equipment knowledge has been on the decline for years as a result of ALL commercial FJCs. I also believe that with each turn over of jumpers the problem gets worse (or I'm just becoming more of a cunt). Jumpers who think they have it figured out are teaching newer jumpers who then share what they learned with their mates and so forth propagating mis-information.

Just curious if anybody hd any thoughts on floating pin bridles?

Threads like this really make me miss Maggot

Eh, I've got a couple FAA certs saying otherwise. If I recall correctly, you stated confidently that the cause was clearly packing error a year ago despite substantial evidence showing otherwise, and then you backed up your buddy Paul when he was defending floating pin bridles. Do you still believe that?

I never said that they were equivalent, but they are both modifications of stock gear and can have fatal results. If you take a TSO'd reserve and adjust the brake setting to speed up the openings and end up sniveling in from a low cutaway, the manufacturer is gonna politely call you an idiot. And yet people do that all the time with their BASE rigs and trust someone else to get it right for them, not realizing that in doing so they have become an unwitting test jumper.

My buddy had "completed" tuning them the day before at the bridge by someone who's done it probably over 100 times and still he ended up too deep. The same could happen due to body/gear weight change.

Losing weight will make an initially properly tuned deep brake setting stall, not gaining weight

No need to call bullshit on anything. If people want to come out of the woodworks as proponents or even past proponents of floating pin bridles, it's entirely up to them. I'm not here to start any witch hunts or call anyone out. Your personal safety is your personal responsibility.

Last I remember floating pin bridles were ditched because jumpers were uneasy with them, in spite of manufacturer recommendations. But rest assured there have been thousands of successful jumps with floating pins.

That doesn't mean that they're a good idea, that means that the "I have X jumps using this gear configuration therefore any issues are not possible" is flawed.

People forget all too quickly we're jumping experimental gear here. Someone goes in from a hesitation or PC in tow every year or two. This is the first time that I've seen it actually investigated to where some conclusions can be drawn.

The guy that wrote the post about the two groups of people nailed it in my opinion. Except I'd add a third - the people that are jumping gear with known hesitation scenarios from objects that aren't forgiving enough for hesitations with a firm belief that "it can't happen to them" because "they do all the right things" that everyone that has died before them has neglected.

+1

+2

And dammit, Lucid's post was good.

I have a feeling the moderators would put a giant brick wall in front of Maggot.

and he would climb over it,and probably jump off it

I checked gear at Bridge Day for 3 years in a row and ran around 400 people through the line each year. I have seen exactly 1 floating pin in use in my 7 years of BASE jumping and it did happen to be at Bridge Day.

The problem with innovation in our sport is the lack of a proper testing period. Many times new methods, gear, modifications aren't tested under all possible conditions and scenarios. Sometimes there really isnt a way around this...there are so many micro variable that when just right (or just wrong) can lead to something catastrophic.

Personally I am finished using gear that is innovative without be tried and tested. To date I've had a wingsuit, a canopy, and a container that I experienced major issues with that could have been deadly. I think with more testing or a bigger population these issues would have come to light sooner.

We're all test dummies, but personally I prefer to be a test dummy that's pretty far down the line from others.

I agree that gear that has been tested on a bigger sample population is more stable and carries "less risk". In engineering we would call it a mature design. Not necessarily saying that a new exotic design is black death...might as well end up being safer in the long run but it carries a "higher risk" due to the fact that the product is at an earlier stage of the life-cycle.

I personally am skeptic of exotic gear mods. For example, let's say, hypothetically speaking, that 1,000,000 base jumps are performed with fixed pins. Out of those 1,000,000 you get two "pin locks" that result in fatalities. Now somebody create a new idea, in this case floating pins. 30,000 jumps (again hypothetical) are performed with this new mod and no death have resulted. Does that mean the new design is better/safer? It may...but the statistics still favor the design with the bigger samples. Just my opinion.

At the end of the day how we all manage risk is a very personal choice.

Well, really everything had been said already.

floating pin bridles were a BR thing that never really caught on. Statistically speaking, they were a solution in search fo a problem, and as mrs. Nesbitt's son pointed out, they are rare.

Also, just like the guy Nesbitt's mom gave birth to had said, it's silly to jump things in the BASE environment that aren't mature. We have had A lines break on new-to-market canopies, new steering cascade configuration cause tension knots, containers partially rip off harnesses - all those things were cured after people either got hurt, or died. This is "kinda" easily avoidable on a personal level by not rushing to get the latest and the greatest, but rather sticking with the tried and proven.

Ody is a girl.

So, honest question: What changed your mind?

hiya : I am not seeing where it looks like I changed my mind, can you point me to where you see that ?

thanks !

I think he was talking about that time where you thought Ody was a boy.


.

A year ago you called everyone hating on floating pin bridles "fucking sheep". Your exact clarification on this was:


You further endorsed floating pin bridles by stating that you'd packed a floating pin rig 400+ times (I'm assuming mostly BD gear rentals) and jumped one 40 times. While I'm glad you're no longer endangering FJC n00bs who don't know any better, I find your new "silly to jump immature gear" opinion a bit convenient.

Good god gharrop you have way to much fucking time on your hands. Why don't you do some drugs or get laid. Basejumper.com historian is not an attractive title.

Actually someone like that would make a very good base jumper because he has the right disorder...

Someone calculated like that has great traits..

Good thing he saw the errors of his SoCalledMentor.