Re: [SwePercy] Cutaway toggles
We personally do not think that the average jumper (including ourselves) would have the skill for this system to be of any use except under rare occurrences (i.e. when opening high and far away from the wall or object).
Personally, neither of us has had a slider up line over. A very experienced jumper that we know has had only one line over that did not clear itself and at the time he was too busy trying to stop the turn and avoid the wall that he didn't even know that he was having a line over. He just knew that things were really bad and was simply reacting to the situation (avoiding the wall to the best of his ability).
The best thing to do in the case of a slider up line over is counter the turn via the opposite rear/front riser or toggle (if countering the turn with the opposing rear riser or toggle results in a stall then you need to jam down hard on the front riser). While one hand is countering the turn, the other hand releases the brake and cycles (repeatedly jamming down hard on the toggle in an effort to make the line over clear). While you are doing this you need to avoid the wall/object as best you can and get your feet in between you and the wall/object if impact is imminent.
If you stop riser/toggle input in order to release the toggle (via the release system) then the turn will accelerate while you are doing this and you will lose
altitude faster and hit harder.
Many of us usually open so low that if we had a line over, we would only have a couple of seconds at best before spiraling in. I know my automatic reaction during that time would be to stop/minimize the turn (through opposite riser/toggle input and cycling the offending line). My vision would be fixed on the ground or the wall during this time - not on a toggle release tab. I would hate to see people so fixated on releasing this tab that they end up causing more harm to themselves by not dealing with the immediate issue of a possible object strike. From the video provided by Tom A., we felt that along with his skill, he was very lucky to have gotten the canopy under control. He also had a good amount of altitude to work with not being low man on a multi way. From other footage that we have seen in the past involving line overs, the canopies were a lot more contrary. Not to mention the intentional line overs that we packed into skydiving rig to test our slider down line release mod. The video footage from that shows some violent spinning and loss of altitude in a short amount of time. Of course, the rig had a reserve and a front mount reserve as well. A little bit different than dealing with a single parachute system that has gone askew.
People must realize that this is a single source solution to a single source problem. A person might be quick to point out that most systems have a slider down brake release mod; therefore it only makes sense to offer one for slider up. There are other malfunctions that are equally possible with the introduction of a slider that can result in similar symptoms as a brake line over. (Suspension line-overs and especially tension knots) In such a compressed time frame, it would be very difficult to determine exactly what the problem is. With our experience in rigging regarding skydiving, on several occasions we have had people come down from a cutaway that have absolutely sworn that they had a line over and after video review and upon inspection, some of the mals were clearly tension knots and in some cases even a bag lock. It just goes to show you that in a high speed, stress-filled situation, it is sometimes not that easy to identify the malfunction in a clear cut manner.
This brings me back to the conclusion that this particular option would only be a benefit in situations where you are pulling quite high and have good separation. Hence, the name of our version… HP Big Grabs. The HP stands for High Puller. As you can see from our comments, they are not something that we promote.
Our take on the whole thing is “Prevention vs. Cure”. We are working on some ideas to help reduce the chance of a slider up line over. I’m not at liberty to divulge any info at this time, but you will certainly know when and if we come out with something. In the mean time, obviously taking care when packing, especially ensuring that lines are not being drawn around to the front when cocooning the tail around the canopy can help in greatly reducing the possibility of a line over.
Hopefully, this has shed some light on some of the possibilities.
