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I had a lengthy discussion of the reliability differences between a BASE and skydiving container for WS BASE with a rigger and was curious what your thoughts were.

To be specific, I am talking about freepacking a BASE canopy in a skydiving container with open corners for the purpose of remaining legal while doing WS mountain flights from aircraft. In the USA you cannot legally jump a BASE container out of an aircraft and so it is not an option.

So do you feel that freepacking BASE canopies in skydiving rigs like a Mirage W series or other container is less reliable than an actual two-pin BASE container as it relates to this application?

This may be an interesting discussion, but first define reliability.
Extraction?
Damage?
Heading?
Other?

Likelinesses to result in a malfunction (including linetwists). Put simply, one person suggested that freepacking a BASE canopy into a skydiving rig for WS use is not as safe as using an actual BASE container.

Some arguments were:

- weaker risers,
- reserve tray which can catch lines but serve no purpose,
- single-pin system has higher pin tension increasing the chance of a high speed mal,
- Square main packing tray (vs long, rectangular) requires S folding the canopy which makes it harder to create a symmetrical packjob increasing the chance of off heading openings,
- higher tension riser covers increases chances of off heading opening due to asymmetrical opening of riser covers upon deployment,
- smaller BOC increases chances of hard pull, and a few other things.

I am not saying I agree or disagree with any of those, but those were some cited disadvantages.

If it's skydiving who really cares about how it deploys as long as it does deploy? If you are flying until you're out of altitude and deploying at 200' we might narrow down on some very small specifics to stack all the odds in your favor, but until you put yourself in that position, it's skydiving and who cares?
To me its the same as considering whether or not to get a ultralight wingsuit rig thats super low profile while you are just learning to wingsuit. There is no way you're going to notice the difference between a super custom ultra light rig and a Gargoyle.

I agree with all that but for me I would be most worried about things like the reserve tray catching a line but also malfunctions of the cutaway system, handles, 3 rings etc.

I've done multiple skydives with my BASE canopy packed in (or sort of in) the deployment bag of my Vector and I don't remember any of them being particularly nice deployments as opposed to the very clean and efficient-feeling openings of my BASE containers.

If using skydiving rigs for WS BASE became a thing (which it wouldn't - due to them being heavier, but let's say it did) I think there would be more malfunctions for sure but it would be mostly because many jumpers do not have sufficient understanding of their gear or interest in maintaining it rather than the raw differences between the systems.

You will notice it on the hike

I'm bored so I will kick this around a little. I would argue that a free packed BASE canopy in a skydive container could be used as safely at terminal as any 3Ring BASE rig out there. I suspect the only thing that may suffer would be heading performance.

The vast majority of linetwists in skydiving are caused by 1 of 2 things, either the DBag spins during deployment, or the aggressive turn and dive aspects of skydive canopies allow them to spin above the jumper or cause the jumper to spin up under the canopy. So, if you are using a large BASE specific canopy that has been free packed then these concerns have been eliminated.

How so? If you mean weaker than continuous risers then sure. But if we are comparing 3Ring risers than this not valid. For the record a Reverse 3Ring has less mechanical advantage than a standard 3Ring. The Locking Loop passing back through the riser effectively doubles the leverage offered by the 3Ring. So Reverse BASE 3Rings actually have less mechanical advantage.
If you mean that skydiving risers are weaker because of the grommet passing through the riser then I wouldn't be concerned about that either. The odds of you blowing apart a Type 8 riser and not destroying your body first are pretty slim. Also it can take as little as 60lbs to pull a cut away cable through an AMP fitting so this would be where I would expect it to fail first and if so then see the comment above about 3Ring vs Reverse 3Ring.
Large Ring Type 8 Risers are plenty strong enough to do the job. I would avoid Type 17 Risers and anything with Mini Rings as they only have about half the leverage offered by large rings.

This isn't even a huge problem in skydiving and usually takes a number of factors to create enough interaction here to actually cause a real problem.
If you are wingsuiting with open corners then the canopy and lines will be extracted backwards away from the reserve tray crease eliminating this concern.

Firstly I think the single pin = more tension is a load of crap. They might have a point if it was a single pin BASE rig vs a 2 Pin BASE rig, but not a skydiving container.
Secondly, if this was a true concern then show me all the fatalities where skydivers went in because they had too much pin tension. It's another non issue. Any pin lock total mals are exactly that, a pin lock, usually due to some extenuating circumstances that caused weird shit to go bad.

This is probably the most viable argument so far but is also something you could practice before hand, if heading performance is even that big of a concern.

This is another actual possibility that would be tough to quantify. Magnetic riser covers will eliminate this problem though.

Make sure the BOC is sized correctly. No more problem. The Aurora actually already has an overly large BOC.

Caveat, I have not made jumps in the fashion you are asking about but I have pulled low enough on skydives to trust the right gear configuration.

Now to touch on another angle that you kinda mentioned is legality. I always hear the "must have a skydiving rig to be legal" argument, but I don't buy your reasoning here. Ask yourself this, If the USPA has a minimum opening altitude of 2500ft AGL then how are you going to be able to do any real terrain flying? Your gear set up is irrelevant if you are breaking other rules anyways. I realize in the USA you don't need to conduct jumps under the USPA but if something goes wrong the FAA will have a blue print of commonly accepted rules from a national body that you chose to ignore. Or what if you are out there causing mischief an the USPA gets wind of it and suspends your membership? Can you get buy with not being allowed to jump at USPA DZs? And lastly, the last guy people ever consider is the pilot. What happens to that poor bastard if you go in? Do you think the FAA will give a shit if you had a Mirage on when he dropped you 1000ft over some mountain ridge? Nope, they are gonna chew his ass with his career on the line. Just some other points to consider.

Very interesting reply, thank you for sharing these great points.


I just wanted to ask for further thoughts on mini vs large rings, since it is relevant when we start mixing BASE and skydiving gear, given that mini rings are so prevalent at the DZ.

I have heard very knowledgeable people disagree over the years on whether mini rings are perfectly safe or black death in the BASE environment. Are there any known events, of mini rings failing on a BASE jump?

None come to mind but that doesn't mean they get reported. And I know Morpheus churned out a lot of Type8 forward mini rings over the years. I can't remember the exact numbers but a forward mini ring should still have about 60-1 leverage plus another 2-1 with the locking loop so Type8 Forward Mini Rings are also plenty strong (they are more critical on the measurements though). My comment to the OP was more of a "What is the strongest 3 Ring set up comment". I would still avoid Type17 and any reverse mini rings.

Thanks for the reply. Vertigo made many (and Todd has made for me as recently as a few years ago) reverse type 8's with mini rings. If I were to start over with my containers I would do large rings, and suggest to others as well. But I maintain my gear well, don't abuse it, and it's a risk I have decided to accept for now. The ease of swapping a canopy onto a sky rig, for learning its flying characteristics better, was worth something to me at various times, but I did not fully understand the consequences of certain cutaway scenarios in that configuration. At least, I was always pulling very high and had a hook knife but still