I dont think this is as great a problem as Jim made
out.

All the chutes ive worn have the cable from the handle
channelled through a flexible steel pipe which is secured
to the shoulder strap through to the release pin inside
the chute. The pipe ensures that the direction of pull
is always the same, irrispective of the way you pull
the handle. The force to pull out the pin is not too
great, certainly considerably less than it would take
to tear the steel hose off the shoulder strap, or break
the swage that holds the handle onto the release wire.
The static line just simply acts as your hand as you
go over the side or get thrown clear.

How many seconds would we waste in free fall before
we got to pull the handle (let alone find it again!)?

What happens if in a mid air collision, you have your
arms injured such you can bearly just release the buckles
and canopy?

I think it would be great if those amongst us wrote
up their glider bail-out experiences...........

At 16:24 12 February 2004, Bert Willing wrote:
There are parachutes for static lines used in gliders
(although less and
less) and manual ones.

To this whole discussion :
- it's almost impossible to retrofit a BRS to a glider
- that means that BRS will only be installed in gliders
with a 'crashworthy'
cockpit
- the only thing I'm really afraid of in soaring are
midairs. Having a
midair in the Alps in the vivinity of a ridge, a BRS
is basically the only
option to survive.

--
Bert Willing

ASW20 'TW'


'Jim Vincent' a écrit dans le message de
...
just out of interest, how many of those of us who
wear
chutes, use a deployment line attached to that odd
looking ring usually found by your left shoulder?

Be very careful about this. The parachutes we use
in gliders are not
designed
for static line deployment; they're designed for the
pull of a hand in a
particular direction. If you rig a static line directly
to the ripcord,
you
risk a very good chance of just ripping off the handle.

On a parachute, the container is kept closed by little
cones and rings.
The
ring goes through the cone, and in the case of a ripcord,
there is a pin
going
through a hole in the cone to keep the cone in place.
For static line, a
piece
of line is wrapped around the static line and then
through the hole in the
cone. When you jump out, the pull of the static line
breaks the thin
piece of
line, releasing the pilot chute.

Jim Vincent
CFIG
N483SZ