I gave my self a step-through malfunction after my parachute opened hard on a wingsuit skydive.
There are a few ways you can create this type of malfunction, and the most common is packing error. Jumpers land from a skydive and on windy days the canopy can get blown behind you or land on your head, and if you step forward when this happens, you have created the step-through for your next skydive.
Although it SHOULD be spotted when you come to pack for the next skydive as a simple 4 line check will show you that you have a step through. To resolve it, you can flip the harness/container through the lines to remove the twist, like you would on a park swing if it has flipped over and made a twist in the chain.
You can also create this step through by deploying on your back.
In my case I went for option 3, deploying my parachute at full speed in my wingsuit with very little 'flare' to convert my speed into lift and slow down.
This gave me a slammer opening and caused me to flip through my risers. For any non skydivers reading, I basically did a backward somersault on opening.
Its been a long time coming as I have been close to this on many jumps, and finally it happened.
A tip I was given by Jackie Harper (World Champion Wingsuiter) is to bring my knees up to my chest after throwing my pilot chute, but I found that was making me go unstable so I reverted back to deploying in full flight.
It had been working for me, but 1 out of 3 jumps I would find the openings to be very very quick, and almost hurt a little.
It would seem I need to work on my flare before deploying.
One of my fingers got trapped (which is always a fear when this happens) but I was able to remove it quickly.
I fly a docile canopy, a 150 square footer, which is a 7-cell (Squirrel Epicene). It could have been a different outcome if I was jumping a high performace canopy, such as a Velocity, Valkyrie, Peregrine etc. Although anyone jumping those 3 canopies I mentioned while on a wingsuit jump probably isn't all there upstairs.
Wingsuit openings can be inconsistant and unpredictable as it is, so you ideally want something stable (a 7-cell) as oppose to a 9-cell, and something larger than what you may usually jump. You want big, soft and fluffy above your head after a wingsuit skydive, not an aggressive canopy thats going to 'search'.
I unstowed my toggles to check to see if I could steer and perform a flare, and I could, so on this occasion I didn't need to chop and get under my reserve canopy. I was able to land the parachute safely.
This shot clearly shows the result of the step-through, the line twists were below the slider luckily which meant that it was likely I would be still able to control the canopy.
Next time I go to the DZ I will get a couple of coached jumps to work on my flare.
Thanks for reading, please feel free to leave comments below.
I can take constructive criticism but abuse from 'Sky Gods' will be removed.
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