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That hurts

Nailed it!

 

I'm really curious after seeing a discussion on Facebook.

How many people here are routing their brake lines through the guide rings for slider down jumps?

How many are running their lines outside of the guide rings? (LRM or Line mode)

Double toggle fire, actually.

Pretty much had to be mis-stowed.

Toggles (set correctly and evenly) is worth double checking on every pack job.

inside the ring for the past 500 jumps or so

Last 500+ SD jumps lines inside the guide rings (no Line Mod).

If I have a slider on regardless of up or down I am through the ring. If its slider off, no ring.

yes no line release mod probably 300 or more of those jumps were slider down

slider off ,not through guide rings.

what happens if you are on a 300' SD cliff with lines through the ring and have a line over? Even with WLO's do you feel like you have enough time to clear the malfunction and be able to pick a place to land? I love being able to toss a line if shit goes to hell.

How many SD line overs has anyone heard off since the tailgate has been around?

How many times has a toggle been lost with the LRM either due to blown toggles or object strikes?

No one solution is right (rings or no rings) but I see more issues with lost toggles then I have heard of SD line overs. Now the only thing left to consider, in my mind, is is a SD line over more serious of an issue vs a lost toggle? I say that's very jump dependent.

Oops, there goes my toggle! I better 180 my self into the ground quick!!

a better question:

for whatever configuration you chose (through the rings, or LRM), did you practice your actual skills for when something goes wrong?

i blew a toggle (slider down) on an early jump. i dropped the other toggle like i had mentally planned for. i was not ready for the rapid descend rate or the proper way to flare for landing, because i did not actually practice for it. it hurt for weeks, and i was lucky.

so i practiced at the bridge. next time it happened (and it did), it was fine.

i won't say that routing through the rings is a bad idea for others. I will say it is a bad idea for me, until i have practiced toggle cut-aways routed through the rings on SD jumps.

I have often wondered about a 'C' ring that might offer some protection against a blown toggle, without preventing you from intentionally releasing it in a pinch. but then i worry about the snag hazard, complexity, or unintended side effects. has anybody toyed with that idea? obviously not suited for slider up jumps.

another idea might be to have a cut-away system for the ring itself. Maybe I'll sew one up this weekend :)
edit to add: new thread in technical forum about that

Is this how we train now? I know of 0, but i know that it's possible. that's enough for me to give myself a better shot at surviving a line over situation. Even if it's easy to clear by pumping the breaks you are stacking the odds against yourself, when are you going to have the time to pump the breaks at 300'? the problem is there is no solution from a line over with the lines through the rings. you can land a canopy without a toggle, you can practice that and probably learn to land and flare exactly where you need to. I think getting away with it is jump dependent but you can logically place a line over in a worse malfunction category than a lost toggle.

A line over might be statistically less likely than a toggle fire, but I like to put my eggs in the basket that I get to control. A line over is effectively random bad luck. A toggle fire comes from a clear, definable mistake that you made. I have confidence in my ability to properly set my toggles (the number of times I check them per packjob is obscene), and I typically jump well within my comfort zone, so I'm not thrashing to pop the toggles as fast as possible. I feel confident enough in my abilities that I think having a line over is probably more likely, or at least that the danger of a line over hurting me is greater than that of losing a toggle.

On the other hand, I have experienced a toggle fire (because I was doing silly things), and I haven't experienced a line over, so maybe I'm wrong.

It's actually not as crazy an argument as it sounds, and many highly experienced jumpers, including myself, would agree with that rational. If you pack correctly, and use a tailgate properly, there is an infinitesimally small chance of having a line over. There are jumps where you could argue a blown toggle is almost just as bad as a line over, and much much more likely to happen. The first person I actually heard of making this argument was Robi. I don't go as far as to jump this way every slider down jump, but if I am switching a rig between slider up and slider down, I don't change where the brakes are routed. The odds of misrigging while constantly changing brake routing are also, I believe, much higher than having a line over if you use a tailgate. At the end of the day, it's always just good to know how to pack and set your brakes properly, but people who keep lines through rings slider down do have a valid argument.

I think that's a pretty compelling argument. Like most debates, both sides have merit. I think the reason I like the LRM so much is that I'm not jumping objects with super technical LZs and I am almost exclusively doing slider down objects, so no changing back and forth.

slider down line overs could happen yes Ive never had one and never seen one.
Ive seen then them unpacked they clear pretty quick. Ive had them slider up and it cleared right away.
I do have a few slider up jumps around and everytime I ski base or jump my wing suit im changing to slider up. Its easier for me that is my main reason bonus is Ill never drop my toggles or blow them.
I don't think I would ever blow them anyways but I have dropped them jumping a friends rig and had line twists I dropped it or threw it out reaching up to get out of the twists.
So pick your battles and make your own choice.

Yup, I dont think theres necessarily a complete right or wrong answer. I have two rigs that are always slider down, and I keep the brakes routed outside because I am confident in the LRM and my ability to correctly pack it, tension the brake lines, and make a chance of a toggle fire about as minimal as a lineover. I personally have had two toggle fires, both on unpacked jumps where I am pretty sure I just sloppily set the brakes, and havent had one in probably 6-7 years. I have also only seen one lineover, and it was on a sloppily setup unpacked jump.

For those that exclusively jump with the lines through the rings no matter what, I dont find any fault in that either as long as a tailgate is used properly. I also think the asymetric folds to keep the lines in the middle are also beneficial in preventing line over. Release toggles obviously are another safeguard that can be used, in addition to having a hook knife.

To add another little piece of fuel to the debate, Ive been using the method of two cut in half small rubberbands larksheaded together and to the inside C line for the last few hundred jumps and I think its the bees knees. I always hated a physical dacron tailgate so I used tape for probably 1500 jumps, but this method has changed my world.

I'm pretty sure the first person to make this argument was Jason Fitz Herbert. He taught a lot of Australian jumpers, which is where it first started spreading.

Jason's logic was that if he lost a toggle he'd almost certainly break a leg trying to put the canopy down into the LZ on most of his jumps. And he figured he'd lost a toggle every thousand jumps or so, which means statistically it was likely he'd break a leg from it once in his jumping career. He figured the numbers on a line over were less--like 1 in 10,000, so statistically he wouldn't ever run up against that one.

He decided this _before_ line release toggles existed, by the way.

Yuri K was also running inside the rings on slider down before line release toggles. He figured the time savings on the pack jobs was worth the extra time spent in the hospital. Or at least he had a long, rational sounding argument to that effect.

Do you have a picture or diagram of this? I can't visualise. Thanks

I think this is the set up he is talking about?

http://www.watchthybridle.com/...ct-control-tailgate/

I've read the term "slidergate" being applied to multiple things like this on these forums.

Agreed. Slider OFF!, routed outside the rings. That was a gnarly video. Lot's of wrong shit going on..

I think he is talking about the control line through the ring on his risers.

Thanks for the link, that was useful reading. But the description I was querying said 2 rubber bands larksheaded together, which I can't visualise :)

This is my personal favorite method of tailgating. I was taught with a normal dacron tailgate, but switched to tape very early on, and used it happily for many many jumps. I find this to be simple, functional, and with very easily found material. Im usually getting around 100 jumps before I need to replace the bands, but have gotten considerably more. I keep an extra and a double ended closing look in my lateral, and thats 99% of my in field rigging needs met.

looks like it would work great. Is there a reason you are well below the tailgate trap?

Just as a counter point..

I would say SD line overs happen all the time, they are just usually self clearing. I have seen others have line overs that cleared all by themselves, and friends have seen them happen to me. The jumper usually never even realizes it happened. I also have a few top skin burns...I assume from a self clearing line over.

For me I go outside the rings with the lrm... Because one day, on a long enough time line, a line over won't clear by itself.

If you're worried about a brake fire...double check that shit. Complacency kills.

Brake fires are not why I would advocate not using the LRM. If someone can't handle setting the brakes properly then this discussion is going to be over their heads. My biggest fear is losing a toggle on an off heading or after a object strike and having a canopy that flys with less then optimal flight characteristics. This is related to the discussion on toggle v riser on an offheading but that doesn't really need to be rehashed again.

Do you have any video of SD lineovers clearing?

Line Overs or Tail Inversions? I would agree that Tail Inversions happen regularly and probably mostly go un-noticed by the jumper. It would also be the most likely cause of the line burn to your canopy.

Didnt see this until the thread got bumped back up. No, I have it set probably 1.5 inches below where it should be for no apparent reason.

Practicing might not hurt indeed. Just let go of both toggle after opening. Or, of just one.
I have had broken line once and I also lost one as well On both ocasions, I landed flaring with one riser and one toggle. IMHO this still gives you more flare energy than just the risers. Of course, you have to measure how deep you flare.