From: Beezy Shaw
To: George Galloway
Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 08:35:04 -0400

Dear George,

Well, the Georgia state record weekend was going about as expected; one or two out on each attempt, but I knew we'd get that completion by the end of the weekend. No real garbage loads, nothing scary happening up there. Being on the outer ring with 68 people in the sky together, I've always been of the belief that if separation is good, more separation is better. What I wasn't factoring into this equation, however, was the fact that all of our rigs are now "Raven packed, CYPRES equipped". So there I was, trackin' and smilin', threw out at slightly on the low side (you know, for that extra separation and "comfort factor"), and looked up to see my trusty Batwing in the nastiest, line-twisty mess I've ever seen! As I went for the cutaway handle, the canopy began to inflate, so I let go and went for my risers to prepare for what I anticipated to be several line twists to deal with.

I wasn't expecting what happened next. I felt a distinctive tug behind me. Immediately I realized "my CYPRES fired!" Well, you know how the recent PIA study determined that on a dual-square deployment the strongest likely hood would be a landable bi-plane or side-by-side? NOT! I was all of a sudden in a one man downplane and headed for earth in a hurry. A quick look at my main and reserve risers to reassure myself that I was about to have a clean cutaway (like I wouldn't have cutaway from it otherwise?), then "goodbye main, hello Micro Raven 150". I certainly wasn't surprised at the beautiful landing I had under my reserve. We do make a heck of a canopy here at Precision, don't we? I was wearing my camera, so as soon as I got back to the dz, we had quite an interesting video de-brief.

The lesson here is simple. You'd better be getting in the saddle at 2500 feet. Pulling at 2000 (ok, 1800) simply does not give enough time to evaluate a hesitation or high speed partial malfunction. At lower pull altitudes you simply end up in the "AAD zone" too quickly. This scenario of two canopies out was uneventful in this case, but the risk of a main-reserve entanglement is way too real for me to ever go there again. Now, do I finally get a Raven T-shirt of my very own?

Your pal,
Beezy