Some good news

Perhaps any male that has jumped with loose leg straps will not want to repeat the pain. You don't need to tighten them like the glider harness, though.
Jim

On Sunday, October 25, 2015 at 8:06:09 AM UTC-7, Jonathan St. Cloud wrote:
The instructions that came with my chute, a Butler, says not to snug the leg straps after sitting in the cockpit, leave them snug when standing. Any comments or experienced parachuter that can comment on this?

Originally Posted by JS

Perhaps any male that has jumped with loose leg straps will not want to repeat the pain. You don't need to tighten them like the glider harness, though.
Jim

On Sunday, October 25, 2015 at 8:06:09 AM UTC-7, Jonathan St. Cloud wrote:
The instructions that came with my chute, a Butler, says not to snug the leg straps after sitting in the cockpit, leave them snug when standing. Any comments or experienced parachuter that can comment on this?

I can't comment on the pain involved with loose leg straps but a pilot in my club who baled out of a Discus CS in the last year was struck under the chin with the chest strap leaving quite a large contusion from ear to ear. The chest strap ended up on his forehead leaving one to ponder what may have been if he was knocked out or rendered insensible by the chest strap upon the chute opening

Colin

On 10/25/2015 2:50 PM, Ventus_a wrote:
JS;910133 Wrote:
Perhaps any male that has jumped with loose leg straps will not want to
repeat the pain. You don't need to tighten them like the glider harness,
though.
Jim

On Sunday, October 25, 2015 at 8:06:09 AM UTC-7, Jonathan St. Cloud
wrote:-
The instructions that came with my chute, a Butler, says not to snug
the leg straps after sitting in the cockpit, leave them snug when
standing. Any comments or experienced parachuter that can comment on
this?-

I can't comment on the pain involved with loose leg straps but a pilot
in my club who baled out of a Discus CS in the last year was struck
under the chin with the chest strap leaving quite a large contusion from
ear to ear. The chest strap ended up on his forehead leaving one to
ponder what may have been if he was knocked out or rendered insensible
by the chest strap upon the chute opening

Colin

This is probably one of those arguments that can go on forever, but somewhen I
got into soaring I read that if you could stand up straight wearing a fully
buckled emergency chute harness, it wasn't tight enough, in the sense that if
you later used it from a sitting position, you'd wish afterwards that you'd
snugged all the straps up one last time *while* you were sitting.

The one time I used an emergency (round) chute a long time ago, I can't
remember if I snugged it up in the cockpit or not, but I DO remember the
harness-matching, colorful, yellow and purple bruises on my upper torso and
shoulders, including the buckles, afterward. I concluded my harness should've
been tighter. And that was without counting to three. No major leg bruises or
talking funny afterward...

Bob W.

At 03:02 26 October 2015, BobW wrote:
This is probably one of those arguments that can go on forever, but
somewhen I
got into soaring I read that if you could stand up straight wearing a
fully
buckled emergency chute harness, it wasn't tight enough, in the sense
that
if you later used it from a sitting position, you'd wish afterwards that
you'd
snugged all the straps up one last time *while* you were sitting.


Some time ago I bought a Thomas Sports "pop top" parachute & picked it up
directly from "Lofty" Thomas (very well known in UK army and civilian
parachuting circles, over 1500 jumps) who also repeated the above advice
that if you can stand up straight the leg straps are not tight enough.

I asked his advice on jumping from a glider & remember the words even
though it was 25 years ago. He said "As soon as you are clear pull the
handle hard, dont bother with this 'one, two, three...splat' stuff. In
fact (he said) if you are having serious troubles getting out and are in a
hurry, as long as you can get your back clear and in the airsteam, just
pull the handle, the drogue will deploy and the chute will pull you out,
although you might break the odd bone in the process!. The risks of the
chute tangling in the airframe are much less than the risk of getting out
too low."

I would imagine this may depend on chute design - his have strong coil
spring that throws the drogue quite a way.

Luckily I have never had to put this advice into practice, although I still
wear a (newer) Thomas chute.

I do worry as age creeps on about how easy or difficult it would be to exit
a damaged glider, I just hope that in the event the adrenalin would give
you the necessary strength! It's always very useful to hear first hand
accounts of this so many thanks for posting experiences on here.