Line Twists: Line twists occur most often with
skydiving rigs and can render
canopies un-steerable and un-landable. Many
Bridge Day injuries have occurred to jumpers who were unable to clear line twists and landed in the rocks or trees.
Contents
Bad body position on opening, often
head down. You can also get into line twists from being head high as well. I have seen that if you are head high, and have a good 90deg or more
off heading, your axis is prone to faster rotation in the direction of the off heading, and you can continue to rotate into line twists due to that momentum.
Practice BASE
exits into a swimming pool until comfortable. Jumpers can also insure that their eyes remain fixed on the horizon while exiting.
The most common cause is packing a skydiving canopy in a bag, which can tumble when pulled out of the container at low airspeeds.
[][/] the skydiving canopy in the container if a
tail pocket has been sewn into the tail of the canopy.
Use a BASE specific container in order to reduce the chances of line twists. Regardless, line twists can be cleared by kicking your legs and pulling the
risers apart.
Maintain a flat or slightly head high position during deployment to reduce the chance of your canopy or canopy bag snagging on the container and spinning during deployment. Regardless, line twists can be cleared by kicking your legs and pulling the risers apart. Don't give up! If unable to clear the line twists, jumpers can "climb" up the
lines and pull on the rear line groups to attempt to steer the canopy from danger. High-performance canopies and canopies with higher aspect ratios (9-cells) are much more likely to have line twists than 7-cell or BASE specific canopies.
This
video shows the beginning attempts to steer a parachute in line twists
[hide][top]Dealing with Line Twists
The most important rule in any incident:
Get away from the Object!!!!!
You do not want to hit the object, and turning your canopy to avoid object strike MUST come
BEFORE getting out of line twists.
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