From: jerrys@umiacs.umd.edu (Jerry Sobieski)
Newsgroups: rec.skydiving
Subject: Re: how often does this happen?
Date: 31 Aug 92 15:09:28 GMT
Organization: UMIACS, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742

In article <1992Aug31.110018.28750@pta.pyramid.com.au> bob@pta.pyramid.com.au (Robert Vernon) writes:
>
>>ANYWAY - i was wondering how often students pull the wrong handle.
>>i was actually a bit impressed that this fellow did, and realized it 
>>as quickly as he did.
>
>Being an ignorant Australian, I've also often wondered how frequently
>this happens in the US and Europe.  As I understand your systems, the
>main ripcord and the cutaway handle are both on the right side.  I
>would have thought that this was easily confused by low jump students.
>In my experience as a JM,  quite a few 1st jump AFF students will not
>look at what they pulling and often start groping around all over their
>harness.  If they do it slowly, I can assist their hand into place or
>give up and pull for them.  But some of them are damn quick.  I'd hate
>to try and beat a student to the draw when he's determined to pull the
>wrong handle.

Turns out, the sequence of events leading to the first AFF level 1 fatality 
(occured last month) began when the student mistakenly pulled his 
cutaway handle instead of his ripcord.  (The student landed under a spinning
reserve and later died of the injuries sustained.)

This weekend I did a level 1 that had the same problem.  The student
continually went for the cutaway handle.  The primary each time, placed
his hand correctly over the ripcord.  Sure enough, at pull time,
the student went for the cutaway.  The primary corrected him, and the 
student pulled his r/c, but this brought the issue home.

This may have been prevented had: a) the student been given more instruction
(but he had performed correctly on the ground), b) the student had 
actually *LOOKED* during his PPs, c) there had been no
other red handle in the vicinity of the orange ripcord.

>
>FYI, (in case anyones actually interested in anything outside the US),
>in Australia, we use a different system for students.  The reserve
>deployment system is called SOS for Single Operation System.  Its a
>combined cutaway handle and reserve handle.  Makes it easier to train
>emergency procedures.  If anything's wrong, then pull the big yellow
>handle.  It also means that the main ripcord is on the right side, SOS
>handle is on the left.  Very hard to confuse the two.  Although an
>occasional student still attempts it.

In the US, student rigs built by Strong Enterprises employ the SOS
system.  I have worked with those systems for years and have always believed
this is a MUCH safer rig for students to deal with malfunctions.  

The Student Vectors, on the other hand, employ a dual system (separate
cutaway handle and reserve handle).  I have worked with these rigs for 
several years also.  They required much closer scrutiny when training
students.  Emergency procedures for students are simplified to
have the student cutaway from everything but a total, so in effect,
there is (IMO) no good reason for two handles [on student rigs].  
A single point system is clearly preferable for early level students. 
A dual point system simply take valuable time to operate. 
(BTW, Why do student Vectors have belly bands? Didn't the sport decide 
those were needless and risky?)

There are other manufacturers of student rigs also, but I have no
knowledge of their merits (except the RI student rig which was the
first one *I* saw with a reserve side main deployment handle - great idea!)

Jerry
-- 
Domain: jerrys@umiacs.umd.edu		    Jerry Sobieski
  UUCP:	uunet!mimsy!jerrys		University of Maryland
 Phone:	(301)405-6735		Institute for Advanced Computer Studies
 					College Park, Md 20742