pin vs velcro

[flyin_ryan]

Is there anything that can be jumped with a velcro rig that cannot be jumped with a pin rig? I relize for terminal stuff a pin rig is the way to go, but what about the other end of the spectrum? All of my jumps have been on a velcro rig, so I have 0 experince with a pin rig (well, other than my skydiving rig but that dosn't count).

[imported_Tom Aiello]

I have made a couple of jumps that I thought a pin rig was innappropriate. The circumstances are pretty rare, so you probably don't have to worry about it.

The jumps were cliffs with large ledges that had to be missed in freefall, as well as being quite low.

In this instance, I wanted to be hand held, so that I could deploy immediately after the ledge, but I had to take a delay (because the opening would have killed my forward speed, and I would have opened onto the ledge). Since I had to take enough delay to clear the ledge, I was concerned that bridle flap might extract my pin.

So, my solution was: velcro rig, hand held. This allowed me to take the delay necessary to clear the ledge, protected me against a premature, and gave me a quick deployment, and precise control over when the deployment occured.

--Tom Aiello
tbaiello@ucdavis.edu