3 months ago
Hello everyone!
I’m curious: I noticed that TheoDeblic in his RescueTutorial doesn't repack his Beamer3 as recommended by the manufacturer's manual.
It's at the very end of the packaging, just before he puts it in the pod: As far as I've been able to see, he just folds it in S, turns the whole block up-side-down, and stuffs it into the pod. (The riser attachment points end up at the top of the pack. And not in the middle as recommended).
I have to remember that this feature would allow a faster opening, but I am not sure. (And that the purpose of slowing it down just a tiny bit is to prevent damaging the reserve with too brutal an opening). Any thoughts on this?
Also the closing of the pod. With the right risers for the right rubber band, left risers for the left... (and no rubber bands for the coils btw) All these functions to get a faster opening again?
Thanks for sharing your knowledge and experience :)
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To clarify regarding separating the risers: I believe this is more relevant to a skydiving opening where the canopy is higher aspect ratio and it's more easy for one side to start flying first and cause linetwists through a spin. A beamer is neither high AR nor prone to spinning quickly so the risk of creating twists through asymmetric opening is just not very high
I will offer a counterpoint to sigi:
IMO, the folding of the fabric basically doesn't matter, so long as the lines are tensioned and bundled together in one central line running up the middle of the packing, with the fabric on the outside. This prevents tension knots and lineovers. The main purpose of the folding technique is to make the packjob manageable and so that it fits into the pod without excessive tension on the closing elastics - very important that it is loose enough that the lines slip so that it is impossible to pick the pod up off the ground by the lines, preventing bag lock.
The opening speed is mostly dictated by how hard you throw and how quickly the lines get under tension, and the folding is less important to the opening speed, though surely if you fold the rescue over and over on itself like a sleeping bag rather than an accordion it will be somewhat slower. The situations requiring a fast opening are much more common and consequential than an odd hard opening and I would never pack to intentionally slow an opening - even pilots that fall into their glider and are in near free fall rarely have an issue of a too hard/fast opening. Actually I am unaware of any incidents of a total failure from this situation, though for sure it's possible to damage the rescue.
I also don't worry so much about twists from how the rescue is folded or put in the pod. Most of the time it comes out twisted anyway because you are throwing from a chaotic situation, but fortunately you can steer the beamer while twisted regardless. I see no reason to separate the risers for closing the pod, it just adds extra unnecessary loops which could increase the opportunity for error.
Hey Phinity :)
so I would recommend you to stick with the manufacturers packing manual because the reserves are a tested that way dozens of times and are working safely. It doesnt mean that the way Theo packs his Beamer3 is wrong but from my point of view I would always recommend to stick with the packing instruction from whom the reserve was developed :)
What I also do also is to seperate the risers on the last loops to close the container. The idea behind is that when you throw it you maybe stop the rotation movement from the container and prevents eventually from line twists while opening.