Pilotchute in tow!!!

[Jolly Jumper]

HI! I thought i should tell a litle story as a warning; It involves: 2,5 sec pilotshute in tow, 180, cliffstrike, twisted lines, treelanding and a total of 6 sec under canopy. This is fairly much from 450 ft!
My gear is Vertex and flik. The Vertex is with venting and MULTILIFT.
We found out that it was the last rubberband on the multi that made the snagg. We later tested this rubberband proffesionally on a testingmachine at the fakulty of materialtecknology.....bla.bla.bla and it broke at 406 newton at see level = 41.4 kg. this is more than 2\3 of the pullforce recomended for the pilotchute! I know I should not have used them at this stow.... but I did not think of it. My warning is dont Use BAs black rubberbands at this point in packing. (it should ben cut in two....or better dont use them at all)
So much warnings... The Flik preformed absolutly beautifull!
The 180 was caused by me beeing pulled up and over on my back by the pilotchute resulting in opening (verry low indeed) on my back. I had 1 sec before cliffstrike. but I managed to get hold of the backrisers above the linetwist and backed the canopy out like a car from a parkinglot! It kept its pressure and behaved verry good. I was a litle banged up (broken rib) from the cliffstrike, but otherwise in one piece. The gear allso is unharmed (jumped it at the same place this week) The moral is Be carefull with the multistow! I pack with no stow from now on. The vented canopys actualy behave verry well backing, witch I now rekomend instead of a sharp turn on risers! The discussion on risers/toggels in situations like that, is for me dead!
P.S the sight of blue sky and a pilotchute, lying on your back is something I hope non of you guys will ever expirience! :

[K]

Hi All!

Thanks Jolly Jumper for this! We're glad you're ok and it all came out o.k. Yes, we've gotten the data for the black rubberbands, and we are no longer recommending their use on the Multi stows, nor on the tailgate. We are changing to the small, regular skydiving bands now.

We have recommended to people in the past to cut the black band in half for the Multi stows, and to use the smallest little bite you can when stowing the sheath, because we did see one extraction hesitation due to the last Multi stow (the band was whole, and the bite was nearly an inch long!)

Now we are suggesting that you use regular small bands to stow your Multi, or even just S-fold the Multi sheath under your top flap, no bands required.

For more details you can contact us at support@basicresearch.com.

Thanks,
Karen