Been sitting on this for about half a year. I feel like it’s worth posting if it keeps at least one jumper from making the same mistakes that I did so it’s going up here for educational purposes.
What happened: my main was deployed and spun into diving line twists. This is likely due to asymmetrical harness loading on a higher wingloaded 9-cell. Considering the rapid nature of descent and that I deployed significantly lower than my normal deployment altitude, I made the choice to chop it. The second I cutaway, my skyhook extracted my reserve before I could manually deploy it. I pulled the reserve handle as a redundancy measure. The spin from my main malfunction transferred the line twists to my stable reserve. I unzipped my gear for a runout landing. I then popped one toggle. This was a muscle memory reaction and was unintentional. This should never be done with line twists. I start to kick out of the line twists. At about 400’ the canopy starts to dive due to the popped toggle. Luckily the reserve is untwisted by 300’ and I am able to dive it into a pasture for a clear landing. The sharp turn, unfamiliarity, and higher wingloading of the reserve combined with a surge from the treeline caused me to hit hard. I flared with my hands behind me and slipped backwards on impact. I set my wrist, verbally let out some frustration, and ultimately walked away pretty lucky.
Contributing factors: there were several variables that I altered to cause this situation.
I was jumping a new rig with a downsized main and reserve. I also deployed significantly lower than I normally do. This resulted in a more rushed deployment sequence which is likely why the harness was loaded asymmetrically. It also gave me way less time to troubleshoot any malfunctions. This was the biggest contributing factor in my opinion. I also could have pushed my risers together and twisted or used my wing to clear line twists faster. I NEVER SHOULD HAVE POPPED THE TOGGLE ON MY RESERVE. This was a huge blunder. I also should have maneuvered the reserve more gently, flared with my wrists in between my knees and PLF’ed like a good boy. Glad to be here.
Took the weekend to see what being a Florida Man was all about.
Big thanks to @dogtor_jimbo and @skysoph for showing me the ropes.
#wingsuit #adrenaline #florida #floridaman #sqrl #cookie #skydiving #redbull #freefall #insta360 #shred #fullsend
Absolute shredder of a weekend out at the Summer Solstice Boogie put on by @skydive_raleigh . Huge thanks to all the organizers, friends, and sexy cameraman @nowcallphotography . Sprinkled in a few clips from stuff I have had in reserve as well.
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#skydive #wingsuit #fullsend #shred #stoke #raleigh #adrenaline #insta360
Flipping through my camera roll and as the year comes to a close I think this had to be one of my favorite no plan jams. Nothing fancy. Just some beautiful clouds and a couple of goofballs. Stay gnarly.
