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I have noticed on my canopy I have line burns on one stabiliser on one side only. If you look from the top of a laid out pack job before folding you have (lets call them) tail, small stabiliser, stabiliser1, stabiliser2, stabiliser3, nose. The line burns have appeared on the right hand side of the canopy on stabaliser1. It seems this area of the canopy is getting a bit of a whipping on opening and whilst packing I cant really make out what is causing this.

Any views / experiences?

I will try and get a picture done of them after I blow this current pack job open!!

Thanks for any help............

Michael

try removing the lines between the stabilisers

Or it could be all the breaks you take on the way up to exit

will see ya soon.dont spoil you gear before i get there

And now we play twenty questions...

What kind of canopy is it? And do you have five control lines?

Are there corresponding burns on the lines? If you can locate the corresponding burns somewhere it may help track down the problem.

How do you fold the side folds in on your pack job? Are they separate folds for each bunch of fabric? Or do you wrap them all into one fold?

And what kind of container are you using? It could be a problem with a flap twisting the pack job into the lines, or something like that.

Anything else about the canopy (multi, secondary inlets)?

Dagger 266 and no

Not that I have found but have not inspected THAT close.


One fold


Wizard



Nope nothing else - just a standard dagger.

I don't know about your line burns, but I do know your jumping the finest flying canopy on earth.

With a properly tailgated canopy (where is your tailgate? does it snug right up against the line attachment tabs?) it ought to be impossible to get those kind of burns after line stretch (because the lines stay in the tail until they're tight). Assuming that you are jumping mostly slider down (by your location), and aren't doing any unpacked jumps (which would give the lines all kinds of opportunities to burn the fabric), the burns have to be developing on the way to line stretch.

Are the burns growing? Or have you just noticed them once (so they might be the result of a single freak opening)?

The only way that the lines would be able to burn the stabilizer prior to line stretch is if your tail pocket is dumping them (unlikely unless your velcro is pretty worn out, or you aren't closing it tightly, especially unlikely because Vertigo has the better style anti-slump flap that wraps the outside).

My two best guesses would be:

a) line dump on a single freak opening caused all the burning (did you have a weird/bad opening recently)?

or

b) your tailgate is too low, leaving significant distance of lines above it (most likely steering line), that can snap around the outside before the tailgate is blown (then, when the tailgate is blown, the fabric has to pull fast through the loop of steering line).

Neither of these ideas accounts for it only being on one side, though.

<scratching head and shrugging> I dunno, what do you think?

Thanks for the info everyone, Tom I don't want to get off subject here, so move this to a new thread if you see fit....but...
How far is too far for a tailgate to be positioned from the line attachment tab. How much does the location vary from canopy size/type, or should it be relatively in the same spot on all canopies?
I've only owned 2 canopies (Mojo, Ace) but I think that the tailgate was around the same spot on both, which is definately not right up against the line attachment tab..and the canopies are 280 and 310 respectively.
Any help/discussion on this would be great!!!
Thanks!
o and I haven't had any lineburns on my canopy
BSBD
Blair

Are you sure it is a line burn? Are you certain you didn't/couldn't have snagged your canopy on something? Maybe whilst shoving it into a stash bag, or catching on a bush when landing...
Just a thought...

I'm trying to remember who told me this. It was either Marty at CR (who was working at BR when they developed the tailgate) or someone at BR. At any rate, my understanding is:

The tailgate should be mounted as high as possible on the center 'C' line. So, when your canopy is in it's deepest brakes, the lowest (on most four line canopies they're all the same anyway, but on most five line canopies there is a lowest) line attachment point should be just above the tailgate. The idea is to constrain the tail as closely as possible. The farther down the line the tailgate moves, the more "wiggle room" the tail has to expand prior to the tailgate blowing open (and hence before the nose is open, and hence out of sequence).

I've just sent an email to BR. Hopefully, they can verify this for us.

Funny you should say that - a friend of mine remarked only a couple of days ago that my tailgate looked like it was positioned quite low............


I have noticed an area that is having a growing amount of partial friction against it......


I do have a few holes caused by such rushed "get the fuck outta here oops I gotta a snag" but I have had 2 x riggers and 4 other people look at the damage and all are in agreement that they are line burns.

I will try and get a photo before I next pack (I blew the pack job open last night on a rather nice 215ft freefall!!! )

I will check out other tailgate positions and compare with mine and perhaps talk with J & M @ Vertigo.

Many Thanks for your VERY helpful thoughts Tom!