Basejumper.com - archive

I definitely used up the rest of my luck jar on this one. https://youtu.be/tj9TBoMLDuQ

I watched that yesterday about 20 times and remembered why I won't jump that or the part over to the right.

Your launch was quite good and your reflexes were fast and as accurate as a person could hope for. A sheer or less under hung cliff and your video would have been a little more boring

Thanks for putting this up.

Thanks for sharing and glad you're ok. Not to be too critical but it kinda looked like either a weak pitch or that you held onto the PC for a millisecond after extracting it. Tough to tell because you go out of frame right at that moment.

Just hypothesizing as to the cause of the off-heading - it didn't look too windy and body position looked good.

+1 ... that jump (exit and response time) was as good or better than most of the shit I see going on at T.B. I learned firsthand it doesnt matter how good you are if your luck runs out. Fortunately - this guy had just enough luck leftover.

Nice work dude!

http://imgur.com/a/X0wv9

The pitch looks ok and his body position looks pretty symmetrical right before opening, but as the packjob comes out of the container, it looks like the nose of the canopy starts to inflate in a weird lumpy way. Kinda looks like an upside-down ballsack or something. You can see the bottom of the packjob is still on-heading, as you can see the center cell facing forward, with the darker blue outer cells on each side.

As the opening progresses, there seems to be some asymmetry in the lumpy, inflated nose portion of the canopy which seems to push the packjob 90° to the right, then once he hits linestretch the canopy twists more for a full 180°.

My BASE knowledge is pretty nothing, and maybe I'm way off, but I'm curious, so maybe someone more knowledgeable could comment? Thanks.

Having had a couple object strikes (and a few more 180s) in my past, I don't jump anything I'm not willing to hit.

Best reactions in the world won't guarantee success every time.

Glad it worked out for ya.

Just a passerby's comment (not jumping strikable objects since my cliffstrike 11 years ago - it was convincing enough), but looks like one of the ears got yanked down by inertial forces harder than the other and it gave the packjob the clockwise momentum:



This makes me wonder if a modified packjob (which I've been using for ~9 years) could help avoid this:

1. "Prestrip" the center cell and build the packjob around it (i.e. always tension the bridle to stretch the center cell fully).
2. Fold the ears down (i.e. put them between the "nose fold" and "tailpocket fold", not on top of the nose fold).



and even better -

3. Eliminate "ears" altogether by doing an asymmetric tail bury (i.e. the accordion folds on each side go on top of the tail in "interlaced" manner, e.g. left-right, left-right, left-right - full width, without first folding them in half like in the pic above), which produces an earless wrap (the bridle attachment point exits from the top of this "tube", instead of having ears on each side). I don't have a picture for this, but the description should make it clear.

I've been jumping this earless, tail-buried, pre-stripped packjob for 9 years in BASE and about 4 years in skydiving (BASE canopy freepacked in skydiving container) and have never had a reason to blame this packjob for an offheading (i.e. all offheadings or linetwists were obviously correlated with shitty body position). If my body position is good, the heading performance is excellent.

Note that the asymmetric, interlaced accordion folds cannot by themselves produce an asymmetry in unfolding fabric because there's no friction between the folds, so the left and right sides spread out freely and simultaneously.

Also, completely eliminates the need for clamps, since the "tube" is very easy to control and produces a more compact packjob.

Again, although I did perhaps ~50 jumps from bridges in this configuration before "retiring" to WS BASE, with zero problems, I would not recommend it as a panacea to offheadings in strikable environment - try it extensively from non-strikable objects (i.e. arch bridges and antennas in full-stop-on-180 wind) first to see for yourself if it works or not.

Thanks, that's interesting.

I have been wondering for a while if not tensioning the bridle attachment point, or being careless with its placement in the packjob (is it in the centre or partially under an ear?) is a common contributor to seemingly random 180s.

I have seen video of a 180 before where it looked like an ear was rotating around the packjob.

Shorter answer:
Multi

I've always kind of wondered, what percentage of people that jump a canopy that came with a multi use the multi?

They don't "come with a Multi", you have to pay for that option, so I hope people who paid for it use it.

I do

Word word word!

Fair enough. I guess I was thinking more of people I know that had used canopies that came with them. The multi-2 seems to be a nice upgrade as far as bulkiness goes for sure. I guess the better question is what percentage of people select the multi option on their order.

Time to recheck your manufactures offerings
2 multi is standard for Apex now

What exactly happens if you hold on to the pc momentarily after pitching?

IMO the multi-2 is a great evolutionary result... i was never a fan of the original multi in general, but understand it's purpose.

the latest multi-2 Apex has made standard with their new canopies is simple and effective. i at last don't see any reason to not have it. :)

Get yourself some knee pads brother

Couldn't say for sure, the packjob was like the rest, body position felt good, I think it was just chaos honestly. Well, 60% due to chaos and 40% because I suck.

I have G Forms on under my jeans, but I for sure need to step up my protective gear for solid objects.

Glad you were wearing knee pads.
G-form are good. D30 is amazing!

Plus anything is better than nothing.
Hell, Harbor Freight has a set for $3.

Here are my own body armor priorities:
Boots, Knee-pads, Helmet, Spine, Elbows

Thanks for posting and great work in that situation.
What size PC were you using ?

I'm guessing PC was a "42 stowed" which is practically standard in Moab. For the airspeed on those short delays though a 46" would take you to line stretch that much faster and not give the canopy as much time to turn/twist ?

Bridle entanglement with the PC.
BFL # 119

We need some kind of name for stowed less than 1 second delay. Hospital Delight?

The PC bounce to the jumpers left in the video was at the perfect time to contribute to the 180.

Nah, prolly wouldn't be much different.

If the "bunny ears" theory has any bearing to what actually happened, then a 46" would probably make situation worse: the rotational momentum during linestretch would be more severe and it could become a full 180.

How about pussy posing?
Love to pose/show off by going stowed, too much of a pussy to take a delay.

I wouldn't say your BASE knowledge is nothing. .you seem to know a lot about ballsacks

This has to be one of the best saves ive ever seen haha nice job!